Sylvia Visits
My children, hot from the sun and dragged
around, perhaps having fun, do not see
why we have come to this walled pen of graves.
Nor why I tramp the trampled grass, a ragged
path between the plots and stones glance reading
the waiting names: all strange, all unknown, save
a few that have their story carved in brief.
And out beyond, lies a landscape, soft, steep,
and green. Relief
comes quietly here. Noiselessly as seeds
falling, and as jumbled as the chatter
from the church fete.
I have come to find a poet who matters
too much to some, but not me - much. I rate
Ms Plath fine, but too wild and hidden, mad
in encouraged ways. A consumptive, drawn
to the sea but choking in fear of flood.
Why else climb up here, to lie? To seek sad
searchers for saints who celebrate and mourn:
votive pens, a flower button of wood
shines in the wind bleached air. Ownerless,
ash, grey bitch comes
toward us wagging full body - eel in grass:
lithe snake; something dying in the ebon
of eyes, which hang begging almost opal.
On light toes the dog dances for affection
while we shoo her and walk on, untouched, clean
away from the dangled tongue; bid 'go home'
to where she belongs. Not in perfection -
of this brochure ordered place. Where girls dream
for the unbearable romantic want
of resurrection. Scratched names, dirty nails,
the tapping silver trail of a single
tear that will salt the high pastures, dry the font
for babies yet unborn. For when God fails,
and men die, there will dry white petal
on summer bramble, the fly eye bubble
boil into yellow berry: bells ring still
for all troubles.
But no trumpet, and no brine touched hills.
it's body eel
through grass: lithe snake. In search of affection
on light toes, begging leper, blackberry
eyes squeezed from dark to opal blue; peels
us away from this garden of perfection:
back through the iron gates. With all we carry.
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