In the Dark Violin of the Valley

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.

 

4 August 2021

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 bed-rock deeper

15 August 2021

To 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 

 

13 August 2021

The river throbbing, the river the aorta

 

And the hills unconscious with listening.

 

~ Ted Hughes, from River: Poems by Ted Hughes with Photographs by Peter Keen (London, 1983)