Come to the Bower

In this first of six titles referred to as the ‘bog poems’ in North the voice is that of the individual, whoever he is, who has come upon the mummified corpse of a woman hidden beneath the surface of the bog in which it has been preserved. An initial ‘forensic’ unwrapping of the mummy is overtaken by the finder’s ultimate focus on what it might confirm to him about Iron Age civilisation. Citations that follow the commentary suggest some uneasiness. The searcher’s hands come, touched (the sense of exploring fingers is paramount in the piece) by the bog-side flowers (sweetbriar and tangled vetch) before dipping beneath the surface (foraging) ignoring the possibility of valuables bagged and left as royal burial […]