Solomon Grundy

Born on Monday and a tiny
world-containing grain of light
passed through each eye like heaven through a needle.

And on Tuesday
he screamed for a small ear in which to hide.

He rolled on Wednesday, rolled his whole body
full of immense salt spaces, slowly
from one horizon to the other.

And on Thursday, trembling, crippled,
broke beyond his given strength and crawled.

And on Friday he stood upright.

And on Saturday he tested a footstep
and the sky came down and alit on his shoulder
full of various languages in which one bird doesn’t answer to another.

And on Sunday he dreamed he was flying
and his mind grew gold watching the moon
and he began to sing to the brink of speaking

Copyright Credit: Alice Oswald, “Solomon Grundy” from Spacecraft Voyager 1. Copyright © 2007 by
Alice Oswald. Reprinted by permission of Graywolf Press. www.graywolfpress.org
Source: Spacecraft Voyager 1 (Graywolf Press, 2007)