Frozen North

Frozen North


Deep in the bowels of a bus
I suddenly awake
and in the dark, mistake
some loony’s neon Christmas

for the turn-off home.
Alone in the night
I watch the tail lights
disappear up six miles more

of artic-hoovered road.
The winter has rules
of its own: the moon is huge
and the wind brings the sob

of music. It would be easy
to be lost here,
we fall in and out of dreams
and could die as simply as lose our way.

The stars are sewn in gold
and the cold is a kiss.
No satellite can breach this
black stronghold.

It’s why we’re alive,
to feel the flicker of heart
timid as a scut,
under an unutterable sky.