Poem #19: Morning Song by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963) was an American poet and writer.  Enjoy

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

One comment

  1. Interesting. Can’t say the poem really hits me in any way but the name Sylvia Plath did ring a bell so just spent some time reading up on her and on Ted Hughes 🙂 So glad you are continuing to highlight poetry 🙂

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