Like a knife-winged hawk balanced on a cliff

. . .

In this love-story there was a man

Who wanted to marry Cassandra

And she was Priam's bright-eyed neurotic

Most beautiful daughter

And he was OTHYRON the dreamer

Who came from Cabesus with no money

When he offered his life for her hand

Her father accepted

And so the dreamer went blushing into battle and died

And everyone laughed and laughed

Except Cassandra

Like a deer in the hills wounded

Keeps running in pain

There are dogs following her bloodprints

But she goes on and on escaping into loneliness

To the very breaking of her being

Until it happens in some shadowy wood on a hilltop

She gives up

And the dogs set about eating her

But at last at evening a lion appears

A huge angel wandering the hills laying claim to the dead

And the dogs scatter

At last at evening a lion appears

A huge angel wandering the hills laying claim to the dead

And the dogs scatter

Oh ASIUS ASIUS

How has he done this

Now he bangs done his knuckles on his knees

He feels so luminous stupid

Sitting in god's headlights trembling

In the narrow opening to the grave

He was told to dismount

And proceed on foot to the Greek camp

But he couldn't hear he couldn't stop

Having ridden those shining horses

Over the Selleis and the Simois

And all the stony way from Arisbe to Troy

Like when winnowers bang their shovels down

Back beans and chickpeas jump in the wind

Their seed-shrouds flit along the ground

Like when winnowers bang their shovels down

Back beans and chickpeas jump in the wind

Their seed-shrouds flit along the ground

Somebody's husband somebody's daughter's husband

Stood there stunned by fear

Like a pillar like a stunted tree

He couldn't bend his stones

He couldn't walk his roots

His armour was useless it simply

Cried out and broke open oh

There stood ALCATHOUS and a spear

knowing nothing of his wedding

Not knowing his feelings or his wife's face

Or her doting parents or her incredible needlework

That spear went straight through his heart

And began to tick tick tick but not for love

Like a knife-winged hawk

Balanced on a cliff with no foothold

Not even a goat can climb there

Like when he lifts his blades and begins

That faultless fall

Through the birds of the valley

Like a knife-winged hawk

Balanced on a cliff with no foothold

Not even a goat can climb there

Like when he lifts his blades and begins

That faultless fall

Through the birds of the valley

. . .

From Alice Oswald, Memorial (2011)