A Sampler of Excerpts From the Poetry of Ted Hughes
Visit (Excerpt)
Suddenly I read all this --
Your actual words, as they floated
Out through your throat and tongue and onto your page --
Just as when your daughter, years ago now,
Drifting in, gazing up into my face,
Mystified,
Where I worked alone
In the silent house, asked, suddenly:
''Daddy, where''s Mummy?'' The freezing soil
Of the garden, as I clawed it,
All round me that midnight''s
Giant clock of frost. And somewhere
Inside it, wanting to feel nothing,
A pulse of fever. Somewhere
Inside that numbness of the earth
Our future trying to happen.
I look up -- as if to meet your voice
With all its urgent future
That has burst in on me. Then look back
At the book of the printed words.
You are ten years dead. It is only a story.
Your story. My story.
From "Birthday Letters," Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998
Apprehensions
Your writing was also your fear,
At times it was your terror, that all
Your wedding presents, your dreams, your husband
Would be taken from you
By the terror''s goblins. Your typewriter
Would be taken. Your sewing-machine. Your children.
All would be taken.
The fear was the colour of your desk-top,
You almost knew its features.
That grain was like its skin, you could stroke it.
You could taste it in your milky coffee.
It made a noise like your typewriter.
It hid in its own jujus --
Your mantelpiece mermaid of terracotta.
Your coppery fondue pan. Your linen. Your curtains.
You stared at these. You knew it was there.
It hid in your Schaeffer pen --
That was its favourite place. Whenever you wrote
You would stop, mid-word,
To look at it more closely, black, fat,
Between your ...
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