The Owl
I saw my world again through your
As I would see it again through your children's eyes.
Through your eyes it was foreign.
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,
A mystery of peculiar lore and doings.
Anything wild, on legs, in your
Emerged at a point of
As if it had appeared to dinner
In the middle of the table.
Common
Were artefacts of some unearthliness,
Their wooings were a hypnagogic
Unreeled by the river.
To comprehend the comfort of their
In the freezing water.
You were a
Recording reflections you could not fathom.
I made my world perform its utmost for you.
You took it all in with an incredulous
Like a mother handed her new
By the midwife.
Your frenzy made me giddy.
It woke up my dumb, ecstatic
Of fifteen years before.
My
Came that black night on the Grantchester road.
I sucked the throaty thin woe of a
Out of my wetted knuckle, by a
Where a tawny owl was enquiring.
Suddenly it swooped up, splaying its
Into my face, taking me for a post.
Ted Hughes
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