Mirror


"I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike. 
I am not cruel, only truthful-
The eye of a little god, four cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake.  A woman bends over me, 
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully. 
She regards me with tears an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an 
old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish."

_Sylvia Plath

6 comments:

  1. I'm so ashamed--I've never even heard of her before. This poem was lovely, though, to the extent that I just used the word "lovely." The last two lines are my favourite.

    ReplyDelete
  2. *jaw drops...

    I believe I just became addicted.

    -sam.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love Sylvia Path...a stunning piece of art for a stunning blog and its priceless authoress. <3

    ReplyDelete

"Sometimes the world seems like a big hole. You spend all your life shouting down it and all you hear are echoes of some idiot yelling nonsense down a hole"
_Adam Duritz

I love hearing things that aren't my own pathetic echoes.