Write poetry:

No Ships In The Bay

 

Dawn was dusk

and dusk was dawn,

in the land,

where the sun never shone.

 

Sub-zero temperatures

and a southerly glow,

an orange sky,

over great mountains of snow.

 

This January day in Hammerfest ,

I was in the world’s most northerly town,

I was in the Arctic Circle

and I couldn’t hear a sound!

 

Silence, no-one around,

no-one ventured out into the wind,

which happened to be blowing a gale

and biting away at my chin.

 

Cutting through me,

like a thousand knives,

it was sharp, it was clean, it was deadly

and it had the power to take as many lives!

 

All I had was three hours,

until the glow would fade away,

three hours of fading light,

that was the day.

 

No sun in the sky,

to bring some heat to my face,

no ultra-violet rays,

in this dark and dreary place.

 

And suddenly all was black,

so quickly, so short was the day,

and all day I saw no people on the streets

and no ships in the bay.

 

Stanley Bruce

17 th January 2006.

 

Memories of my visit to Hammerfest in Norway , the coldest place I’ve ever been to in my life it was -20C and blowing a gale.