THE HAWK IN THE RAIN

Ted Hughes

I drown in the drumming ploughland, I drag up
Heel after heel from the swallowing of the earth´s mouth,
From clay that clutches mey each step to the ankle
With the habit of the dogged grave, but the hawk

Effortlessly at height hangs its still eye.
His wings hold all creation in a weighless quiet,
Steady as a hallucination in the streaming air.
While banging wind kills these stubborn hedges,

Thumbs my eyes, throws my breath, tackles my heart.
And rain hacks my head to the bone, the hawk hangs
The diamond point of will that polestars
The sea drowner´s endurance: and I,

Bloodily grabbed dazed last-moment-counting
Morsel in the earth´s mouth, strain towards the master-
Fulcrum of violence where the hawk hangs still.
That maybe in his own time meets the weather

Coming the wrong way, suffers the air, hurled upside down,
Fall from his eye, the ponderous shires crash on him,
The horizon trap him; the round angelic eye
Smashed, mix his heart´s blood with the mire of the land.