some thumbnails of my illustrations

some thumbnails of my illustrations
Please click on the links below to view my portfolio ........ Images copyright of Carrie Osborne

Thursday 11 November 2010

Wild winds and whirling words...

'Joy of a falling leaf' by Arthur Rackham

I woke this morning to a wild blowing gale rattling the sash and an early dawn mirk of stormlight chasing wind-tattered cloud across a ragged sky.
And on a breath the words of a Ted Hughes poem tumbled through my not quite awake mind...
It is one I have known and loved for years and the mood of the elements this morning woke them from my subconcious before I was really awake myself. So I suppose my bemused husband was woken by his crazy wifey randomly (and sleepily) quoting half lines of a random poem to the darkness!
But anyway, its been in my head all day so here it is as set out in one of my books...

Wind (by Ted Hughes 1957 - 1994)

This house has been far out at sea all night,

The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,

Winds stampeding the fields under the window

Floundering black astride and blinding wet


Til day rose; then under an orange sky

The hills had new places, and wind wielded

Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,

Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as

The coal-house door. Once I looked up -

Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes

The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,


The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,

At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-

Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house


Rang like some fine green goblet in the note

That any second would shatter it. Now deep

In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip

Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought


Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,

And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,

Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.

4 comments:

  1. Carrie your chosen picture couldn't be more apt for the blustery conditions we have here in suffolk today! Great sense of movement in the picture, I do love walking in a strong fresh wind.

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  2. Aaron-paul, I love that picture, I'm going to have to get hold of it one day and put it on my wall... problem is there's too many great pictures out there and not enough walls!

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  3. We've had a bit of wind here this week as well. Enough for me to awaken in the night, frozen rain pelting the window.... loud enough to not let me sleep, and to awaken nervousness in me as well with those tall, towering trees above the house and my bed! Great poem, and the blustery Rackham picture is perfect. And I agree with your above comment. So many great pictures, not enough wall space!!

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  4. Great poem from Ted Hughes, some of those lines are just magic! I love storms and thunder...as long as I'm safe and warm inside of course! I love the fact that Mother Nature can still scare the willies out of us, and no matter what kind of destructive force we've invented, she can still make it look puny and weak. It's somehow comforting to know she's still the boss.

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