Tuesday Poem: “North” Reprised
North
homes
white timbered in the south
give way to brown-red
in mid and north –
avenues of birch trees
serried lakes
an elk
runs through deep winter
the night train flares
through cuttings –
inferno cast across jagged firs
frozen earth
rushes headlong
into spring – a pied crow
solitary
above a grey field
.
(c) Helen Lowe
Published in Bravado 14
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This poem came up in an email conversation with a friend in Finland over the weekend, so it seemed a good time to reprise it here on the blog. Although I should add — conscientiously — that it was written about a journey to Arjeplog in the north of Sweden (not Finland), which lies just south of the Arctic circle, and my subsequent return to Stockholm in the south.
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Wow Helen, this is really stunning. I love the speed in the words – the way they flow into each other, and the rush of the description as it dashes across landscapes and seasons. Thank you for sharing this!
Hi Leah, welcome to the Tuesday Poem community — am so glad you liked ‘North.’:)
It’s lovely – and perfect timing for a reprisal – spring is coming, not as fast as a trip away from the arctic circle, but eventually 🙂
Yes, I can feel the movement – it feels like a train journey, with the world whipping by outside your window – especially with the canvassing of the changing colours of the houses. There is something so peaceful and ruminative about this poem, Helen – the stationary watching. Lovely!
Great…so crisp every word counts. I love the way the night train and /or the frozen earth rush headlong into spring.
Alicia, Elizabeth, helen — so glad you’ve all enjoyed.:)
I like the way this makes such a short sharp impression, as if you’ve just had a fleeting encounter with the North and it has made a lasting impression, even as winter is rushing into spring and all you’ve seen is about to disappear.
It definitely did make a lasting impression… And it was interesting for me when writing as I found the more detail I tried to include, the more the overall feeling of what I was trying to capture was lost. Decidedly a case of ‘less is more.’