SHADOW
I'm going to flicker for a moment
and tell you the tale of a shadow
that falls at dusk
out of the blue to the earth
and turns left along the path to here
groggily under its black-out
being dragged along crippled over things as if broken-winged
not yet continuous
no more than a shiver of something
with the flesh parachute of a human opening above it
but lengthening a little as it descends through the rings
of one hour into the next
with the rooks flying upwards snipping at the clouds
until at last out of that opening here it lies
my own impersonal pronoun
crumpled under me like a dead body
it is faint
it has been falling for a long time
look when I walk
it's like a pair of scissors thrown at me by the sun
so that now as if my skin were not quite tucked in
I am cold cold
trying to slide myself out of my own shade
but hour by hour more shade leaks out
or if I stand
if I move one hand
I hear the hiss of flowers closing their eyelids
and the trees
as if dust was being beaten from a rug
shake out their birds and in again
it's as if I've interrupted something
that was falling in a straight line from the eye of God
and if I do nothing
the ground gives up
the almost minty clarity of its grass begins to fade
the white moths under the leaves
are amazed
www.poetryfoun...
www.theguardia....
• Poet Alice Oswald read...
12 сен 2024
