Tuesday Poem: Winter - Beyond Oslo

The air is as breathable as concrete
the trees like fences propped
against a wind that knows hunger
.
The small farms bunkered down
in their garths on land worked
lean and seeded with stone.

You tell me there are wolves and bears.
I believe you.

Copyright Kathleen Jones 2014

Turf roofed Norwegian farm buildings

These are just a few scribbles from the Norwegian notebook. I was struck by how poor the available land was and how sparse the population.  I'd love to travel far enough out of Oslo to meet wolves and bears in the forests, though numbers are quite low and I'm a bit disturbed by the current efforts of the government to exterminate wolves altogether in Norway.  George Monbiot has quite a lot to say on this and it makes grim reading.

Why not head on over to the Tuesday Poem hub and read what other Tuesday Poets are posting today? This week the featured poem is by award-winning NZ poet James Northcliffe.  You'll find it at http://www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com