In 2006, I wrote and performed my first sequence of poems about the Northern Lights, called Colour Catchers. After several trips to North Norway, I added a second sequence called Stories Drummed, based on the landscape, people and creatures I encountered there.
Along with articles about the mythology and science of the aurora, they can be found in my book Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey (published by original press in 2009).
Fire-bridge to Sky-shore
If you could put your feet upon pure light,
kick away the earth for a path of sky,
walk the Trembling Roadway,
called Bifrost, bridge of green fire,
shafted with rails and struts of shine;
if you could swing out on ropes of colour
giddy space walker, swaying free,
hear yourself rustle in the silence,
gulp air charged with icy brilliance,
smell frost-needles fastening hair;
(extract from 'Firebridge to Skyshore' first published in The Journal 2007)
Solar Arias
The sun breathes in
lifting and tightening
the ribs of the universe
the sun breathes out
fiery runes we cannot
quite read yet
out of its mouth
a molten stream
of light seeds
dizzy as a cloud
of dandelion clocks
fizzing with electric
potential, plasma
rushing space for
the magnetopause
(extract from 'Solar Arias', published in Making a Mark, an anthology of writing from Leicester Writers’ Club 2008)
Cargo
black with the weight
of tonight's snow
the lid of evening
slides down into
that milky space
on which a crow
scratches its mark
and below
an Odd Berg
rust red hull
shivers white
water crags
navigates sand
banks of charcoal
trawls ice seams
of glacial light
(Published by Poetry Nottingham 2008)