The Moon and the Yew Tree

The moon is a yew tree In the half-light of the world Unknown poet’s grave no longer humbles— Elms loaded with mist, sombre Black water on the dark feet of yew. The yew roots slant into the green flow, Roots knotted deep in black heartstones, Wide force wrenched inside obvious law, Dead from informed moonstruck instructions.

The soil shakes in dark drowning. The quiet must make sense out of it. What I thought was space is tangled, The whole world moves under soft layers, Like a kind of tension grasped in the spine, Rising to the kneecaps. Push through shadow, and pull deeper, inside.

Is this—? No, it’s the sudden blushing flame, like thrush, That darts in circles, that yields no time. But the trees, whose fate is sisterly with mine, Will they gaze, breathe? It aches on all sides, Their needles protrude to silence, looking on so much, Earnest to remain, joyless hosts.

But a being waits— Unaware of softness’ ink-blot in shadows— Clutching it close. Like stems, they will lean, From under the archaic slender pain, releasing Horizons grow bony, daring the whole of thing: This “moon”.

A slow pull of darting thoughts.

• Ted Hughes