Ted Hughes
Began under the groan of the oldest forest It ran through the clouds, a third light And it ran through the skin of the earth
It came circling the earth Like the lifted bow Of a wave’s submarine running Tossing the willows, and swelling the elm-tops Looking for its occasion
But people were prepared They met it with visor smiles, mirrors of ricochet With smiles that stole a bone And smiles that went off with a mouthful of blood And smiles that left poison in a numb place Or doubled up Covering a getaway
But the smile was too vast, it outflanked all It was too tiny it slipped between the atoms So that the steel screeched open Like a gutted rabbit, the skin was nothing Then the pavement and the air and the light Confined all the jumping blood No better than a paper bag People were running with bandages But the world was a draughty gap The whole creation Was just a broken gutter pipe
And there was the unlucky person’s eye Pinned under its brow Widening for the darkness behind it Which kept right on getting wider, darker As if the soul were not working
And at that very moment the smile arrived
And the crowd, shoving to get a glimpse of a man’s soul Stripped to its last shame, Met this smile That rose through his torn roots Touching his lips, altering his eyes And for a moment Mending everything
Before it swept out and away across the earth.