Surgery and Collision

The violinist's shadow vanishes.

The husk of a grasshopper
Sucks a remote cyclone and rises.

The full, bared throat of a woman walking water,
The loaded estuary of the dead.

And I am the cargo
Of a coffin attended by swallows.

And I am the water
Bearing the coffin that will not be silent.

The clouds are full of surgery and collision
But the coffin escapes - a black diamond,

A ruby brimming blood,
An emerald beating its shores,

The sea lifts swallow wings and flings
A summer lake open,

Sips and bewilders its reflection,
Till the whole sky dives shut like a burned land back to its spark -

A bat with a ghost in its mouth
Struck at by lightenings of silence -

Blue with sweat, the violinist
Crashes into the orchestra, which explodes.

'Cadenza' by Ted Hughes.

Seeing the stark contrast between the intense sunshine over mine and neighbouring houses and the thunderous black clouds behind, brought the line about the clouds being 'full of surgery and collision' from this, my favourite Ted Hughes poem to mind.

About 30 seconds after taking this, the darkness descended over my house and the Heavens opened.