New Year Exhilaration comes from a sequence of poems originally published as part of Moortown (1979), and then, in a single volume with an introduction and notes by the poet, as Moortown Diary (1989).
Back in the late 1980s a few of us went to Buxton Opera House to listen to Ted Hughes read his poetry. The event stayed with me, but it's only recently that I have started dipping into his poems and finding that I rather enjoy them.
In the spring we are planning a trip to Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall and Mytholmroyd to explore the Hughes and Plath locations and connections.
On the third day
Finds its proper weather. Pressure
Climbing and the hard blue sky
Scoured by gales. The world’s being
Swept clean. Twigs that can’t cling
Go flying, last leaves ripped off
Bowl along roads like daring mice. Imagine
The new moon hightide sea under this
Rolling of air-weights. Exhilaration
Lashes everything. Windows flash,
White houses dazzle, fields glow red.
Seas pour in over the land, invisible maelstroms
Set the house-joints creaking. Every twig-end
Writes its circles and the earth
Is massaged with roots. The powers of hills
Hold their bright faces in the wind-shine.
The hills are being honed. The river
Thunders like a factory, its weirs
Are tremendous engines. People
Walk precariously, the whole landscape
Is imperilled, like a tarpaulin
With the wind under it. ‘It nearly
Blew me up the chymbley!’ And a laugh
Blows away like a hat.