March morning unlike others

 

 

Blue haze. Bees hanging in the air at the hive-mouth.

Crawling in prone stupor of sun

On the hive-lip. Snowdrops. Two buzzards,

Still-wings, each

Magnetized to the other,

Float orbits.

Cattle standing warm. Lit, happy stillness.

A raven, under the hill,

Coughing among bare oaks.

Aircraft, elated, splitting blue.

Leisure to stand. The knee-deep mud at the trough

Stiffening. Lambs freed to be foolish.

 

The earth invalid, dropsied, bruised, wheeled

Out into the sun,

After the frightful operation.

She lies back, wounds undressed to the sun,

To be healed,

Sheltered from the sneapy chill creeping North wind,

Leans back, eyes closed, exhausted, smiling

Into the sun. Perhaps dozing a little.

While we sit, and smile, and wait, and know

She is not going to die.

 

— Ted Hughes