Tonight the wind
With teeth of glass,
The jackdaw
In caged branches of iron,
The stars have talons.
There is hunger in the
Of vole and badger,
Silver agonies of
In the nostril of the fox,
Ice on the rabbit’s paw.
Tonight has no moon,
No food for the pilgrim;
The fruit tree is bare,
The rose bush a
And the ground is bitter with stones.
But the mole sleeps, and the
Lies curled in a womb of leaves,
The bean and the
Hug their germs in the
And the stream moves under the ice.
Tonight there is no moon,
But a new star
Like a silver trumpet over the dead.
Tonight in a nest of
The blessed babe is laid.
And the fir tree warms to a bloom of candles,
And the child lights his lantern,
Stares at his tinselled toy;
And our hearts and
Smoulder with live ashes.
In the blood of our
The cold earth is suckled,
In our agony the
Convulses its seed;
In the first cry of
The child’s first breath is born.
This version is a transcript of the poet reading his own work on the
BC Radio 3 programme
