All others talked as if <br />talk were a dance. <br />Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet <br />would break the gliding ring. <br />Early I learned to <br />hunch myself <br />close by the door: <br />then when the talk began <br />I’d wipe my <br />mouth and wend <br />unnoticed back to the barn <br />to be with the warm beasts, <br />dumb among body sounds <br />of the simple ones. <br />I’d see by a twist <br />of lit rush the motes <br />of gold moving <br />from shadow to shadow <br />slow in the wake <br />of deep untroubled sighs. <br />The cows <br />munched or stirred or were still. I <br />was at home and lonely, <br />both in good measure. Until <br />the sudden angel affrighted me—light effacing <br />my feeble beam, <br />a forest of torches, feathers of flame, sparks upflying: <br />but the cows as before <br />were calm, and nothing was burning, <br />nothing but I, as that hand of fire <br />touched my lips and scorched my tongue <br />and pulled my voice <br />into the ring of the dance.<br /><br />Denise Levertov<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/caedmon/
