Poems & Translations Based Upon the Writing of Knud Rasmussen & Thorli Wulff

No sign of life
not a bird, not a plant.
Only lichens clothing
the sharp stones with grey.

A patch as big as a penny
can be more that a century old
here in this place
where vegetation is at rest
350 days of the year.

Deriving nourishment
chiefly from stone

the lichen is thus a plant
which in all its poverty
has eternity before it.

#Knud Rasmussen #autumnrichardson #arctic #lichens