Epigraph [from Earth Dances] for Reg by Ted Hughes

Kim Dorland, Hitchhiker, 2009 oil and acrylic on wood 36 x 40 inches

Epigraph [from Earth Dances] for Reg


The suffering of stony, high horizons,
Under the stir of air, sharpens.
And the water-torture of gorges, hoarse wounds
That cannot cease to be, deepens.


Listening to moorland is a headfull of ether.
The bones of the eye-socket
Go inane. The bones of the ear 
Hallucinate a ghost.


The soul clings to its skull
Like a tremor
To a tuft of bog-cotton.
Or leaps onto a lark's back


With an idiot song, lost in air.