Peter Redgrove

To Circe

I was that hero again
Struggling up

Out of my time as hog,
Astonished at my upright carriage,

The rolling boulder of my skull,
My complicated hands

The shake of my knees,
The savagery of my thoughts:

I wept and cursed—I was a man again.

II.

Pieces of that piggery-paradise came with me,
The white clouds persisted

In the dazzling pools of filth;
The pine-forest retained pig-heat,

The shock of tallness
In the serious balsam of the pointing avenues,

The thunder unfolding
Like the black diamond of the Sorceress,

That is, the woman wearing her lucky raincoat
In the lucky rain,

Out and feeding the pigs their magical slop,
Shining, as they shone.