'hear yourself rustling in the silence, smell frost-needles fastening hair ...'
'Firebridge to Skyshore'
All morning the mist curled around its threads until finally, my hair froze, just like my poem. I was become another rimed thing in the landscape. Only we weren't in the Arctic but in the hills of Hathersage, Derbyshire. At 8.30 am, the sun was a shrunken disc above Carl Wark. Barely luminous at all. The intricate textures of this world lay revealed in crystals and dendrites.
All morning the mist curled around its threads until finally, my hair froze, just like my poem. I was become another rimed thing in the landscape. Only we weren't in the Arctic but in the hills of Hathersage, Derbyshire. At 8.30 am, the sun was a shrunken disc above Carl Wark. Barely luminous at all. The intricate textures of this world lay revealed in crystals and dendrites.
Feathery rings of wood grain on a post; a lattice of splinters in a bootprint; frost blossoms bursting on the heather. Up on the heights, rocks crouched like giants petrified in the mist. Spectral sounds drifted through of a crow kaarking, a sheep bleating, my stick clink-clinking a frozen puddle. The moorland's thorny trees were black fractals in the gloom. Under an overhang, icicles exploded along grass stems and erupted into bubble-wrap on a boulder.
Susan and I are both writers who draw creative sustenance from this season. I've written nothing new this past month, beyond blogs and reviews, but I have been squirreling away nuggets of thought, creamy tubers of winter sweetness. We're busy firing off applications for Polar Poet gigs, mainly at summer festivals, and when we're telling tales of the Arctic, this time will be our hoard of inspiration.
Really enjoyed your wintry Hathersage impressions. Enjoy the rest of your time there - look forward to the photos!
ReplyDeleteIt's snowing in Cardiff at the moment - big chunky flakes - but too wet to settle much unfortunately...
ah yes - wet and grey here today too after the snow - but yesterday was so magical I can't complain : )
ReplyDeleteHi Siobhan, I've been slow to comment on your 'Stories Drummed to Polar Skies' DVD, but finally...really enjoyed the evocative nature of the references to the legends and myth, even though not especially well versed in them, which in a way put me in the 'headspace' of someone trying to make meaning of the sight of the lights. I'm sure that no two people would have the same response to your words, and perhaps that is as it should be, given what I have understood to be a feature of seeing the lights, of some things being 'unknowable' with personal memory/imagination coming into play in order to reach some kind of understanding of such a sight
ReplyDeleteI hope it's not too 'dumb' to say the imagery of Firebridge to Skyshore called to my (not well travelled but very well stocked with film imagery) mind the ending of 2001: A Space Odyssey, due to the idea of seeing strange sights and colours as a result of moving beyond knowledge, reason, perhaps even beyond life itself into some other realm/plane of existence. So, ignorance on my part aside, exhilerating stuff!
I'll comment on Polar Night, since it's the piece you put on the blog that I commented on prior to winning one of the comp prizes...Despite you saying the film(s) were a bit 'low-tech' I feel you still got a variety of different looks for the pieces, and Polar Night in particular (just by simply being lit only by the lamp you were holding created) achieved a very (appropriately) different feel. Being the film nerd I am, I actually wondered how it would look if it was just the reflection of you in shot, so zoomed in as best a DVD payer allows and moved the image so it was was that way, with pretty spooky and atmospheric results that made me wish the poem was longer.
I have enjoyed my prize very much, so thanks to the Polar Poets once again, for braving the cold and bringing back words that have so much warmth!
Well, I'm delighted to hear you enjoyed the DVD, Bill and it's always helpful to get feedback. Yes, we enjoyed playing around with ideas for the filming and I hope to do more with the film medium and my Northern Lights book. I like your 2001 reference - I did think of the aurora as another dimension and space travel is in there too!
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