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Falling Awake

Book by Alice Oswald · 1 quotes · Alice Oswald, Falling Awake, Poem

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Falling Awake Quotes

“TWO VOICES I own the dawn! the cockerel claims. The light still loiters with intent to take the night. Wind steals through woods, the democratic dew gives equal weight to everything. A few blank seconds and he starts again. He yawns and voice possesses him. I own all dawns! I stand on dignity! he shouts out, shut in the dark kingdom of his one-room flat. More pained possessive crazed each time he crows he has to wrench his larynx, curl his claws to let that shout surge through him. Glancing out I notice nothing answers except light, whose answer makes the earth's hairs stand on end and shadows fall full-length without a sound. What is the word for wordless, when the ground bursts into crickets? There's a creaking sound like speaking speeded up. A skeleton crawls across leaves, still in its cramped position. one minute stooping on a bending blade rubbing its painful elbows, next minute made of pinged elastic, flying hypertense, speaking in several languages at once. not like a mouth might speak, more like two hands make whispered contact through their finger-ends, like light itself which absent-mindedly brushes the grass and speaks by letting be, but when you duck down suddenly and stare into the startled stems, there's nothing there.”

PoemAlice OswaldFalling Awake
Book:Falling Awake
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