"Morning Song"

I took a trip to the library today with the intent of getting one particular book and ended up leaving with four. Go figure. One was a collection of poetry from Sylvia Plath, a very lovely and tragic poet. Why is it that the people who are highly-tuned to the beauty of language and the world around them are likely to commit suicide? Is it, perhaps, because they see the potential of the world and know that it will never be rid of all the evil?

But, I digress. When I opened the book, I was met with this beautiful piece of poetry. When I was done with work on Sunday, I was so sick of screaming, messy children. Perhaps that's why this poem sticks out to me. I need to see the beauty in the crying.

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 distils 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 as cleans 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.