Waking In Winter

I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing.
Winter dawn is the color of metal,
The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.
All night I have dreamed of destruction, annihilations —-
An assembly-line of cut throats, and you and I
Inching off in the gray Chevrolet, drinking the green
Poison of stilled lawns, the little clapboard gravestones,
Noiseless, on rubber wheels, on the way to the sea resort.

How the balconies echoed! How the sun lit up
The skulls, the unbuckled bones facing the view!
Space! Space! The bed linen was giving out entirely.
Cot legs melted in terrible attitudes, and the nurses —-
Each nurse patched her soul to a wound and disappeared.
The deathly guests had not been satisfied
With the rooms, or the smiles, or the beautiful rubber plants,
Or the sea, Hushing their peeled sense like Old Mother Morphia.

Sylvia Plath

 The Moon And The Yew Tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky --
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness -
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence.

Sylvia is really using her intuition and higher sense of self here in this poem. She takes inventory of her surroundings at Court Green and soon begins to notice the symbolic impact her environment has on her entire mood and state of mind. In essence, what she sees outwardly is a manifestation of what is occurring on the inside of her being. It's a message to her personally and it's also a Universal truth in a way. The subjective and objective collide and reveal a message to her. One would wish it was something comforting and helpful (blessed guidance), but Sylvia sees nothing of this and interprets the entire situation in desolate, grief-stricken terms.

It's an esoteric cryptic poem. It unveils that the Divine Masculine and Feminine co-exist tangibly in her physical reality, the Moon and the Yew tree. The energies of God/Goddess and Mother/Father permeate and reveal themselves. There is Holiness and divinity here whether it's more pagan or orthodox both are represented. An opportunity for a Resurrection and purification is presented, but Sylvia cannot bring herself to cleanse and purify. She's "fallen a long way."

The fact that these two elements of nature make their presence known to her on religious grounds (the church) truly solidifies the presence of a miraculous event in her mist. She takes advantage of the situation with the outpouring of this mystical spiritual poem, but then cannot go the entire way with a shift or change in perspective or mood.

I think this poem is beautiful yet tragic. It's truly an example of Sylvia's depth and extraordinary soul, but she is also still so sad. I wish she had the chance to experience a relief of her sorrow in her life. All of that depression and woe is really taxing!

Meredith Charlottesville, VA , USA