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Tag Archives: Ted Hughes

Pudding, Peace and Ted Hughes

The lovely Mr S has been working on the interior of the boat for the past month, out from 9-6 each day so when he came home early today, we went out for a treat. Here is the Lemon Meringue Pie that was my choice of dessert.

I bought these letters today as the Es were back in stock. I have put them on the window sill in the sun room, overlooking the back garden.

This poem, April Birthday by Ted Hughes, is for a young friend whose birthday is today. Happy days, N. I love the idea of Spring, being ‘like a whole circus tumbling through a hoop.’ I love the ‘blossoms bombing’. I love the trees staggering under their new load of young leaves. I love the poem as you may have gathered! Hope you do too, Natalie.

April Birthday – Ted Hughes

When your birthday brings the world under your window
And the song-thrush sings wet-throated in the dew
And aconite and primrose are unsticking the wrappers
Of the package that has come today for you

Lambs bounce out and stand astonished
Puss willow pushes among bare branches
Sooty hawthorns shiver into emerald

And a new air
Nuzzles the sugary
Buds of the chestnut. A groundswell and a stir
Billows the silvered
Violet silks
Of the south – a tenderness
Lifting through all the
Gently-breasted
Counties of England.

When the swallow snips the string that holds the world in
And the ring-dove claps and nearly loops the loop
You just can’t count everything that follows in a tumble
Like a whole circus tumbling through a hoop

Grass in a mesh of all flowers floundering
Sizzling leaves and blossoms bombing
Nestlings hissing and groggy-legged insects

And the trees
Stagger, they stronger
Brace their boles and biceps under
The load of gift. And the hills float
Light as bubble glass
On the smoke-blue evening

And rabbits are bobbing everywhere, and a thrush
Rings cooly in a far corner. A shiver of green
Strokes the darkening slope as the land
Begins her labour.

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on April 4, 2017 in Beauty, Food, friendship, Peace, Photography, postaday2017

Tags: April Birthday, birthday present, lemon meringue pie, Ted Hughes

Baby Hats, Singing and Ted Hughes

03 Dec

I have finished the two Christmas Tree hats in case the twin Grand-babies arrive earlier than expected! The colours of the stars were chosen by their excited big sister.

Tree hats

Last night The Ingleheart Singers and The Suitcase singers sang carols for the Open Evening at Krowji where all the artists’ studios were open and it was a brilliant evening.

Singing for the artists

We are having some bitterly cold times and this poem by Ted Hughes came to mind. I just love all the similes. I hope you enjoy it too.

The Warm and the Cold – Ted Hughes

Freezing dusk is closing
    Like a slow trap of steel
On trees and roads and hills and all
    That can no longer feel.
        But the carp is in its depth
          Like a planet in its heaven.
        And the badger in its bedding
          Like a loaf in the oven.
        And the butterfly in its mummy
          Like a viol in its case.
        And the owl in its feathers
          Like a doll in its lace.

Freezing dusk has tightened
    Like a nut screwed tight
On the starry aeroplane
    Of the soaring night.
        But the trout is in its hole
          Like a chuckle in a sleeper.
        The hare strays down the highway
          Like a root going deeper.
        The snail is dry in the outhouse
          Like a seed in a sunflower.
        The owl is pale on the gatepost
          Like a clock on its tower.

Moonlight freezes the shaggy world
    Like a mammoth of ice –
The past and the future
    Are the jaws of a steel vice.
        But the cod is in the tide-rip
          Like a key in a purse.
        The deer are on the bare-blown hill
          Like smiles on a nurse.
        The flies are behind the plaster
          Like the lost score of a jig.
        Sparrows are in the ivy-clump
          Like money in a pig.

Such a frost
    The flimsy moon
        Has lost her wits.

          A star falls.

The sweating farmers
    Turn in their sleep
        Like oxen on spits.

3 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on December 3, 2016 in Beauty, Christmas, knitting, Photography, poetry, Postaday 2016

Tags: Krowji, Ted Hughes, The Ingleheart Singers, The Suitcase Singers, The Warm and the Cold

A Visit, Harvest Moon and Ted Hughes

29 Sep

What a sense of achievement today! I walked to visit a friend, not far, maybe ten minutes and all downhill but I did it with no problem (still using my crutches of course) and had such a good time. Thank you for a fascinating morning, D.

A blogging friend kindly sent me a wonderful photo of the Harvest moon rising last night. As for us, clouds obscured his view of the eclipse but who needs that when the Moon herself makes such a show the following evening!

Moon by Plum Creek

I have long loved this poem by Ted Hughes – The Harvest Moon.

The Harvest Moon

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks upward
To lie on the bottom of the sky, like a gold doubloon.
The harvest moon has come,
Booming softly through heaven, like a bassoon.
And the earth replies all night, like a deep drum.So people can’t sleep,
So they go out where elms and oak trees keep
A kneeling vigil, in a religious hush.
The harvest moon has come!And all the moonlit cows and all the sheep
Stare up at her petrified, while she swells
Filling heaven, as if red hot, and sailing
Closer and closer like the end of the world.Till the gold fields of stiff wheat
Cry `We are ripe, reap us!’ and the rivers
Sweat from the melting hills.