by Ted Hughes
All night a music
Like a needle sewing body
And soul together and sewing soul
And sky together and sky and earth
Together and sewing the river to the sea
In the dark skull of the valley
A lancing, fathoming music
Searching the bones, engraving
On the draughty limits of ghost
In an entanglement of stars
In the dark belly of the valley
A coming and going music
Cutting the bedrock deeper
The earth-nerve, a scalpel of music
The valley dark rapt
hunched over its river, the night attentive
Bowed over its valley, the river
Crying a violin in a grave
All the dead singing in the river
The river throbbing, the river the aorta
And the hills unconscious with listening.
*This poem was the one I had chosen in my M1 Independent Design Studio directed by Dereck Revington. It was to be the inspiration for, or force behind, the individual projects that were to come. It is a very dark, violent poem and so, subsequently, the projects of the term were rather dark, emotional, sometimes unnerving.
a.
All night a music
Like a needle sewing body
And soul together and sewing soul
And sky together and sky and earth
Together and sewing the river to the sea
In the dark skull of the valley
A lancing, fathoming music
Searching the bones, engraving
On the draughty limits of ghost
In an entanglement of stars
In the dark belly of the valley
A coming and going music
Cutting the bedrock deeper
The earth-nerve, a scalpel of music
The valley dark rapt
hunched over its river, the night attentive
Bowed over its valley, the river
Crying a violin in a grave
All the dead singing in the river
The river throbbing, the river the aorta
And the hills unconscious with listening.
*This poem was the one I had chosen in my M1 Independent Design Studio directed by Dereck Revington. It was to be the inspiration for, or force behind, the individual projects that were to come. It is a very dark, violent poem and so, subsequently, the projects of the term were rather dark, emotional, sometimes unnerving.
a.
