Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

The Beautiful Beast is a symbol of enspirited Nature. It is the voice of the grasses, insects, birds and beasts of the Altai. It is the incarnation, in the spirit of the Altaic epic tradition, of the wisdom and love of Mother Nature.

The Beautiful Beast said:
                    You’ll face no grieving.

Beneath
along the lakeside rockbed cliffs
the boiling wind visiting from the Gobi
seethed and hissed,

and scarcely splashed the lake,
right across, and did not care,
while the tiny human dwarfs,
bowed down and exhausted,
had taken half a day
to scramble up the sheer stream
in the track of rockfalls and avalanches.

The Beautiful Beast said:
                       the light for you is here.

Whle we crept up into the alpine meadows
a bear stared down from a rock,
a sable coughed,
and a roe deer puffed its nostrils.
The taiga heaved and in generous gusts
gave deep breaths,
and stretched ever upward . . .
The Beautiful Beast
sparkled under every cedar.
Its fur curled, smoke-like,
as moss, only silver.

The Beautiful Beast said:
                        your knowledge is lying.

The rustle of the cedar wood in the sunset light of day
is like the midnight whisper
of her who loves you:
‘It’ll be all right . . . Just listen to me . . . ’

We crawled upwards,
our bleeding fingers grasping
the shoots of juniper bushes –
and on the top
the Altaic sunset
scattered its crimson rays.

The tundra turned red.
The shallow lakes
reflected red.
All around the creeping birches and willows
were binding the surface through crimson embroidery
of a clinging pattern.

Suddenly
the Beautiful Beast said: there is no death but a cycle.
All that is real is equal and related,
all that is real is a part of me.