Alice Oswald

Various stars. Various kings. Various sunsets, signs, cursory insights. Many minute attentions, many knowledgeable watchers, Much cold, much overbearing darkness. Various long midwinter Glooms. Various Solitary and Terrible Stars. Many Frosty Nights, many previously Unseen Sky-flowers. Many people setting out (some of them kings) all clutching at stars. More than one North Star, more than one South Star. Several billion elliptical galaxies, bubble nebulae, binary systems, Various dust lanes, various routes through varying thicknesses of Dark, Many tunnels into deep space, minds going back and forth. Many visions, many digitally enhanced heavens, All kinds of glistenings being gathered into telescopes: Fireworks, gasworks, white-streaked works of Dusk, Works of wonder and/or water, snowflakes, stars of frost . . . Various dazed astronomers dilating their eyes, Various astronauts setting out into laughterless earthlessness, Various 5,000-year-old moon maps, Various blindmen feeling across the heavens in braille. Various gods making beautiful works in bronze, Brooches, crowns, triangles, cups and chains, And all sorts of drystone stars put together without mortar. Many Wisemen remarking the irregular weather. Many exile energies, many low-voiced followers, Watches of wisp of various glowing spindles, Soothsayers, hunters in the High Country of the Zodiac, Seafarers tossing, tied to a star . . . Various people coming home (some of them kings). Various headlights. Two or three children standing or sitting on the low wall. Various winds, the Sea Wind, the sound-laden Winds of Evening Blowing the stars towards them, bringing snow.

Born on Monday and a tiny world-containing grain of light passed through each eye like heaven through a needle. And on Tuesday he screamed for a small ear in which to hide. He rolled on Wednesday, rolled his whole body full of immense salt spaces, slowly from one horizon to the other. And on Thursday, trembling, crippled, broke beyond his given strength and crawled. And on Friday he stood upright. And on Saturday he tested a footstep and the sky came down and alit on his shoulder full of various languages in which one bird doesn’t answer to another. And on Sunday he dreamed he was flying and his mind grew gold watching the moon and he began to sing to the brink of speaking

Three people in the snow getting rid of  themselves breath by breath and every six seconds a blackbird three people in raincoats losing their tracks in the snow walking as far as the edge and back again with the trees exhausted tapping at the sky and every six seconds a blackbird first three then two passing one eye between them and the eye is a white eraser rubbing them away and on the edge a blackbird trying over and over its broken line trying over and over its broken line

It is the story of the falling rain to turn into a leaf and fall again it is the secret of a summer shower to steal the light and hide it in a flower and every flower a tiny tributary that from the ground flows green and momentary is one of water's wishes and this tale hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail if only I a passerby could pass as clear as water through a plume of grass to find the sunlight hidden at the tip turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip then I might know like water how to balance the weight of hope against the light of patience water which is so raw so earthy-strong and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along drawn under gravity towards my tongue to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song which is the story of the falling rain that rises to the light and falls again

It is said that after losing his wife, Orpheus was torn to pieces by Maenads, who threw his head into the River Hebron. The head went on singing and forgetting, filling up with water and floating way. Eurydice already forgetting who she is with her shoes missing and the grass coming up through her feet searching the earth for the bracelet of tiny weave on her charcoal wrist the name of a fly or flower already forgetting who they are they grow they grow till their bodies break their necks down there in the stone world where the grey spirits of stones he around uncertain of their limits matter is eating my mind                                I am in a river I in my fox-cap floating between the speechless reeds I always wake like this being watched already forgetting who I am the water wears my mask I call  I call lying under its lashes like a glance if only a child on a bridge would hoik me out there comes a tremor and there comes a pause down there in the underworld where the tired stones have fallen and the sand in a trance lifts a little it is always midnight in those pools iron insects engraved in sleep I always wake like this being watched I always speak to myself no more myself but a colander draining the sound from this never-to-be mentioned wound can you hear it you with your long shadows and your short shadows can you hear the severed head of Orpheus no I feel nothing from the neck down already forgetting who I am the crime goes on without volition singing in its bone not I not I the water drinks my mind as if in a black suit as if bent to my books only my face exists sliding over a waterfall and there where the ferns hang over the dark and the midges move between mirrors some woman has left her shoes two crumpled mouths which my voice searches in and out my voice being water which holds me together and also carries me away until the facts forget themselves gradually like a contrail and all this week a lime-green hght troubles the riverbed as if the mud was haunted by the wood this is how the wind works hard at thinking this is what speaks when no one speaks

Good God! What did I dream last night? I dreamt I was the moon. I woke and found myself still asleep. It was like this: my face misted up from inside And I came and went at will through a little peephole. I had no voice, no mouth, nothing to express my trouble, except my shadows leaning downhill, not quite parallel. Something needs to be said to describe my moonlight. Almost frost but softer, almost ash but wholer. Made almost of water, which has strictly speaking No feature, but a kind of counter-light, call it insight. Like in woods, when they jostle their hooded shapes, Their heads congealed together, having murdered each other, There are moon-beings, sound-beings, such as deer and half-deer Passing through there, whose eyes can pierce through things. I was like that: visible invisible visible invisible. There's no material as variable as moonlight. I was climbing, clinging to the underneath of my bones, thinking: Good God! Who have I been last night?

She could be any woman at all, caught off-guard on-guard. With her hands stroking or strangling and maybe with her intentions half-interred. But she is as she is. Her gaze is always filing away at its cord. And what she's really after is you to love her. She forgets who she is. She could be so small she almost has no smell. She feels like anyone at all. When you walk up to her, she keeps quite still, but what she answers to is never loud enough to know. Eaten away by outwardness, her eyes are empty. They could be watching you or not. They work indifferently, like lit-up glass and if you ask why she won't speak, why should she? When what she really wants is silence. You know what women are like: Kay, Moira, Sandra. They move through a dark room, peering round under the hoods of their names. Alcestis, Clytemnestra. She could be either of those. She scarcely knows. She goes on thinking something just over your shoulder. This could be the last night before you lose her. But what's the use of saying one thing or another. When what she's really after is you to love her.

I heard a cough as if a thief was there outside my sleep a sharp intake of air a fox in her fox-fur stepping across the grass in her black gloves barked at my house just so abrupt and odd the way she went hungrily asking in the heart's thick accent in such serious sleepless trespass she came a woman with a man's voice but no name as if to say: it's midnight and my life is laid beneath my children like gold leaf

This is the day the flies fall awake mid-sentence and lie stunned on the windowsill shaking with speeches only it isn’t speech it is trembling sections of puzzlement which break off suddenly as if the questioner had been shot this is one of those wordy days when they drop from their winter quarters in the curtains and sizzle as they fall feeling like old cigarette butts called back to life blown from the surface of some charred world and somehow their wings which are little more than flakes of dead skin have carried them to this blackened disembodied question what dirt shall we visit today? what dirt shall we re-visit? they lift their faces to the past and walk about a bit trying out their broken thought-machines coming back with their used-up words there is such a horrible trapped buzzing wherever we fly it’s going to be impossible to think clearly now until next winter what should we what dirt should we

Very small and damaged and quite dry, a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone very eroded faded her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone exhausted        utterly worn down a Roman water nymph made of bone being the last known speaker of her language she tries to summon a river out of limestone little distant sound of dry grass        try again a Roman water nymph made of bone very endangered now in a largely unintelligible monotone she tries to summon a river out of limestone little distant sound as of dry grass     try again exquisite bone figurine with upturned urn in her passionate self-esteem she smiles looking sideways she seemingly has no voice but a throat-clearing rustle as of dry grass                                        try again she tries leaning pouring pure outwardness out of a grey urn little slithering sounds as of a rabbit man in full night-gear, who lies so low in the rickety willowherb that a fox trots out of the woods and over his back and away              try again she tries leaning pouring pure outwardness out of a grey urn little lapping sounds        yes as of dry grass secretly drinking        try again little lapping sounds    yes as of dry grass secretly drinking        try again Roman bone figurine year after year in a sealed glass case having lost the hearing of her surroundings she struggles to summon a river out of limestone little shuffling sound as of approaching slippers year after year in a sealed glass case a Roman water nymph made of bone she struggles to summon a river out of limestone little shuffling sound as of a nearly dried-up woman not really moving through the fields having had the gleam taken out of her to the point where she resembles twilight        try again little shuffling clicking she opens the door of the church little distant sounds of shut-away singing    try again little whispering fidgeting of a shut-away congregation wondering who to pray to little patter of eyes closing                                    try again very small and damaged and quite dry a Roman water nymph made of bone she pleads she pleads a river out of limestone little hobbling tripping of a nearly dried-up river not really moving through the fields, having had the gleam taken out of it to the point where it resembles twilight. little grumbling shivering last-ditch attempt at a river more nettles than water                                        try again very speechless very broken old woman her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down she tries to summon a river out of limestone little stoved-in sucked thin low-burning glint of stones rough-sleeping and trembling and clinging to its rights victim of Swindon puddle midden slum of over-greened foot-churn and pats whose crayfish are cheap tool-kits made of the mud stirred up when a stone's lifted it's a pitiable likeness of clear running struggling to keep up with what's already gone the boat the wheel the sluice gate the two otters larricking along                                     go on and they say oh they say in the days of better rainfall it would flood through five valleys there'd be cows and milking stools washed over the garden walls and when it froze you could skate for five miles      yes go on little loose end shorthand unrepresented beautiful disused route to the sea fish path with nearly no fish in