Inside Her Woods

Inside her woods:  the mind’s
                                    midwinter;
goddess
of the rainbow; trees
(of course); the hush
of things; sleep;
the last red squirrel;
a wave,
                                    a winged form;

 fingers
                                    rusted;
the very lifting edge
of evening;
a coin stuck in a slot
for many years; the sound
of water pouring; a matter of terror;

a gentle little thing;
craters and mirrors; a circle full of light;
     its conclusion;
a bent-down bough
     of nothing; children racing;
pollen; a new world; bubbling

                                  breeding pools;
woodnymph’s Joints
and Kracks; bright and blowy
enclosure of weather;
                          a flood
                          across
                          a plain;
                          a thread;
                          a bridge
                             built
out of the linked cells of thin air; a rose;
one foot; green; roots; opponent eyes;
a scrapwork of flashes
among billowing
clustered on its branches;
various Danks
of Dusk; the moon,
a waspish whiteish; more than one North
Star, more than one South
Star;

Christ; silence; dawn closed and containing everything;
                           the rock’s heart
under darkness;
                        small-seeing
flies; the dead tongue;
the dandelion
like heaven concealed; a man;
prints
on the wall, etc.

Margo Roby

Source:  Woods, etc. by Alice Oswald