Crow’s Nonsense

A sky full of winged shadows, My ruination is to mask it, But down below, within silence, There are things ticking, pretending That they never could be so, And holding on to night’s gold voice, Sleep witlessly, tremors break all dark. Beliefs disperse flight, swollen evaporations, The weight beneath isolation. The crow thumbs its soft-beaked hell And dances in our unblinking stares. This, too, is where it all started—finally broken, undone.

• Ted Hughes