Since January 2001, the multisatellite and multiinstrument CLUSTER mission gives a unique opportunity to study the structure and dynamics of the high-altitude polar cusp. On 17 March 2001, CLUSTER sampled the northern high-altitude cusp (7--9RE) around noon for more than 1 hour during very quiet interplanetary and magnetospheric conditions (P 0 driven patterns, including one or two lobe reconnection-cells in the dayside polar cap, according to the amplitude of the By component. The overall convection pattern responds in ~3--5 min to abrupt changes in the IMF orientation. Successive electron and ion patches are interpreted as signatures of pulsed, enhanced reconnection in the high-latitude magnetopause, poleward of CLUSTER, at a distance estimated to be 8--12RE and, at times, less. A four-point boundary analysis demonstrates that reconnected flux tubes (Flux Transfer Events) convect with drift directions and velocities (6--15 km/s) in close agreement with the inferred convective patterns. Furthermore, CLUSTER demonstrates that boundary cusp motions, with a velocity up to ~20 km/s, are immediately and directly induced by abrupt changes in the IMF orientation.