The Phoenix

“Out in the loading bay light | Watching the fog recede | Divided the flame you slowly gave to me | Sign of relief in my mind | But I only caught you the one time | Later, I'd watch you and wonder what it was like"

Phoenix - Big Red Machine (feat. Fleet Foxes and Anais Mitchell) (2021)

This 15m or so fissure represents the last rites of the Meradalir volcanic eruption, which began in south western Iceland on 3 August 2022. Unlike its big brother, Fagradalsfjall, which erupted for 6 months in 2021, Meradalir was over within 3 weeks. It stopped erupting just as I was flying out to photograph it, but them’s the breaks. After several hours of hiking up into the valley in the midst of the lifeless Reykjanes highlands, I was confronted by a smoking morass of cooling lava and an empty cinder cone. At the edge of the lava field, the foul stench of sulphur filled my lungs, but it was only as dusk dimmed the light that the final chapter of Meradalir was written. This last fissure, viewed with a drone, reminds me of a phoenix, that mythological, immortal bird which cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. The Reykjanes region is going through an exciting new period of intense volcanic activity, and there will be further eruptions - further flaming reincarnations. For me, however, the relief in my mind was tinged with deep frustration, for I only caught you one time, and later I’d watch you and wonder what it was like.