the quivering and the molten

Another of my favourite Ted Hughes' poems, taken from this marvellous 2003 'Collected Poems' volume:


Sky Furnace

Earth rolls
Into the sky furnace.
The ore awakes
To trumpets of bright metal.

Aurora Borealis
Shakes out wings
Treads the quivering and the molten
With mud webs.

An eye has opened in the egg.
A caught star struggles in the iris.
The moon's broken shell, ashen.
Drifts off.

The winds of space cry out
Over human sleep
Through outstretched throats
Unearthly words
and drop a mud feather.

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Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)

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