the machine

The dark ate you. And the fear
Of being crushed. 'A huge dark machine',
'The grinding indifferent
Millstone of circumstance'. After
Watching the orange sunset, these were the words
You put on a page. They had come to you
When I did not. When you tried
To will me up the stair, this terror
Arrived instead. While I
Most likely was just sitting,
Maybe with Lucas, no more purpose in me
Than in my own dog
That I did not have. A real dog
Might have stared at nothing
Hair on end
While the grotesque mask of your Mummy-Daddy
Half-quarry, Half-hospital, whole
Juggernaut, stuffed with your unwritten poems,
Ground invisibly without a ripple
Towards me through the unstirred willows,
Through the wall of The Anchor,
Drained my Guinness at a gulp,
Blackly yawned me
Into its otherworld interior
Where I would find my home. My children. And my life
Forever trying to climb the steps now stone
Towards the door now red
Which you, in your own likeness, would open
With still time to talk.

Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters.