"Gog" by Ted Hughes

I woke to a shout: 'I am Alpha and Omega!'

Rocks and a few trees trembled
Deep in their own country.
I ran and an absence bounded beside me.

The dog's god is a scrap dropped from the table, The mouse's
savior is a ripe wheat grain—
Hearing the messiah cry
My mouth widens in adoration.

How far are the mosses!They cushion themselves on the silence.

The dust, too, is replete.
The air wants for nothing.

What was my error? My skull has sealed it out.My great bones are
massed in me.
They beat on the earth, my song excites them.
I do not look at the rocks and trees, I am frightened of what they
see.

I listen to the song jarring my mouth Where the skull-rooted teeth

are in possession.
I am massive on earth. My feetbones beat on the earth
Over the sound of motherly weeping....

Afterwards, I drink at a pool quietly,The horizons bear the rocks

and trees away into twilight.
I lie down, I become darkness—
Darkness that all night sings and circles stamping.

—"Gog" by Ted Hughes, from Wodwo

:
 I was looking at my old essay "Slender Mitochondrial Strand," written
on the occasion of the death of Nicholas Hughes, son of Ted Hughes
and Sylvia Plath. I saw that I'd promised to find and post "Gog," one
of my favorite poems, which I'd memorized as a teenager. Of course
I found it in my favorite volume of poetry, John Wain's Anthology of
Modern Poetry (Hutchinson, 1963). I used to have copies of Wodwo
and Lupercal, my favorite Hughes volumes, but I can't find them now,
so I just added them to my Amazon shopping cart. Just for
:
 completeness I'll post Wain's comment on the poem:

"Gog" refers to the biblical prophecy (Ezekiel, chapter xxviii) of a

hostile power that will arise in the world immediately before the
Last Judgment, and inflict untold destruction.

Now that I've mentioned a Bible verse on Sunday my relatives might

be quietly satisfied that I might still be "saved," though they'll
probably reconsider if they read "Fire Next Time," a poem I just wrote
today for NaPoWriMo.

Then again the Bible is the last thing I really think of when I read
"Gog." To me it's all about Hughes's aggressive Paganism. And it
really brings me home to my chosen home of Colorado, where I still
feel the rule of the "rocks and trees" (though sadly the bark beetle is
making a large dent in the latter). I think of Lewis and Clark
mounting the continental divide and seeing an infinite expense of
wooded and icy mountains. "I am Alpha and Omega!" And weren't
they forced to believe it! And then, closer about them, below the
tree-line, the fauna and flora on the verge of losing its indifference to
people, replicated in that infinite expanse that pushed their field of
vision and imagination. Man and his power that derives from Nature,
and yet holds it within to destroy so much of Nature's creation. That
is the paradox that I see written into "Gog."

By the way, if you're as interested in Hughes's poetry as I am, don't

miss my discussion of his recently uncovered poem "Last Letter." I
focus on the poetry, because everyone else seems so much more
interested in the drama.
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