Hadn't considered Finland at all. On the poem I like the first two stanzas 
and while the rest is well written feel it is more wool gathering than 
anything else and not essential to the success of the poem.



bw
James





>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: Life and Death in the North
>Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2003 10:44:15 +0200
>
>If any of you have been wondering what itīs like in Finland just now, itīs 
>quite a lot like this:
>
>
>
>Life and Death in the North
>
>This is the dead end of the year.
>Nothing lives under this lowering sky.
>The frozen air weighs like stone.
>Booted and scarved and wool-wrapped to the ears
>I step out on the empty land
>where a line of distant pines divides
>converging planes of white and grey.
>
>This is the dead end of the world.
>No life is possible here.
>Everything warm has left, or lies
>hidden and sleeping.
>A graveyard of summerīs rushes
>stand in frozen stasis at the ice-lakeīs rim
>looking on the cold Medusa face,
>impervious to the windīs persuasion.
>
>Shadows over the untouched white
>resolve to footprints of fingerīs-end size
>where no feet can have run.
>Is this the ice-light playing tricks?
>Stepping closer I marvel to see them
>sweep in lines between the stems,
>twist, arc and double back,
>colliding with companion trails.
>
>In all these endless miles of cold,
>under this unforgiving sky,
>confounding all my previous prejudice,
>a family of some tiny creatures had sported here.
>And in the centre of their circling runs
>a patch was wildly scuffed and trodden,
>as if the happy band had held a midnight dance.
>
>Or something larger had surprised them at their play.
>
>
>
>
>Mike
>
>
>


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