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Wulf
by Bill Manhire
Wulf - Bill Manhire
This is a poem called 'Wulf', which is in fact a loose translation of an Anglo-Saxon poem, and the speaker in it is a woman.
Wulf
1
They take it from me:
in the manner
of a gift
if danger moves in the earth
is the life given
is it love between us
2
Wulf: on that island
– I on this other
shut into fens, a bone
in the neck of a savage
if danger moves upon water
is the life given
is it love between us
3
In my mind we joined together:
as it rained, as
I was sad in the rain, as
he laid with me in his arms
into his shoulder
a joy given into me like sorrow
4
Wulf, Wulf,
it is not
at all hunger shaking my limbs
but that you do not journey
absent & yet
you fill me
5
They take it from me:
in the manner
of a gift
the spine of a feather, a cloud in the body
ai, it is
easily broken, what
was never at one:
you & I, Wulf, the one
with the other
& singing
from Collected Poems (Carcanet , 2001), © Bill Manhire 2001, used by permission of the author and Carcanet Press Ltd.