'Moors' by Ted Hughes

Yesterday I went to the final day of the 'Britain in Focus' exhibition at the Science and Media Museum (formerly the National Photographic Museum) in Bradford. The items were curated and presented by Eamon McCabe, a reflection of his own favourites and influences: a spin off from the BBC Four series.  Fay Godwin's work with the camera and as an environmental campaigner was highlighted.

 From Godwin's beautiful collaboration with Ted Hughes, 'Elmet', I have had difficulty selecting just this one poem and its corresponding photo. Incidentally, in Mytholmroyd, where Hughes came from, the only public memorial I have come across (apart from the 'blue plaque' in Aspinall Street) are the title and first two lines of this poem inscribed around the sculpture in the small car park near the church.

Moors

 Are a stage
For the performance of heaven.
Any audience is incidental.

 A chess-world of topheavy Kings and Queens
Circling in stilted majesty
Tremble the bog-cotton
Under the sweep of their robes.

 Fools in sunny motley tumble across,
A laughter - fading in full view
To grass-tips tapping at stones

 The witch-brew boiling in the sky-vat
Spins electrical terrors
In the eyes of sheep.

 Fleeing wraith-lovers twist and collapse
In death-pact langour
To bedew harebells
On the spoil-heaps of quarries.

 Wounded champions lurch out of sunset
To gurgle their last gleams into potholes,

 Shattered, bowed armies, huddling leaderless
Escape from a world
Where snipe work late.




Paved path above reservoir at Lumbutts by Fay Godwin

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