Blossom and Blue

The blossoming sweetness of stars and sky

and all the rest

falls in front of the hillside before us like a basket.

and turns the abyss below to blossom and blue.

                     -section of Mystic

Arthur Rimbaud

Red by Ted Hughes

               Red was your colour.
            If not red, then white.But red

               was what you wrapped around you.
                   Blood red.Was it blood?
             Was it red-ochre, for warming the dead?
                     Haematite to make immortal
          the precious heirloom bones, the family bones.