A Poem for Sylvia Plath
“Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.”
You could have lived you know…
You would have been only 79 today
You could have continued to grow
We would still cry, illuminated away…
…by your verses and your gaze
But alas, that was not to be your destiny
Our metropolis is a grave of the phrase
Our time is dead hands working dead stringency
Your age, had you achieved it
Would have been a sexy prime
Look at you, on that photo, doesn’t it fit?
Instead of keeping you, into our time
We gave you to the White mist
At the tender age of 30, so short, it explodes
Like the image of your perfect lips
Or the knives of your words, antipodes
Of power and playfulness
Destruction and redemption
You are the retribution of man’s maleness
And the guilt of male assumption
Before we all fell like Icarus
From the sky, the sky you soared
It is your voice we heard, give us then a truce
Give us a few spaces in your sky, or a sword
To fall on and feel your pain
Your beauty and your effervescence
If you had only lived till today, your age…
…would be the color of gold
Like your voice rendered in your words of rage
Like your poetry, straight from a heart so bold.
October 27, 2011
Thanks so much for this work that echos words directly from the heart. How true, words do make a difference when shared with others – whomever it was, was beautiful and suffered young, and visions reappear – in words. Thank you again, for sharing a piece of your heart. Sincerely, Nancy
I am glad you liked Nancy. Sylvia Plath was a wonderful poetess – and I adore her works.