Wanting to Comfort Sylvia

 When the soles of my feet grow cold,

The blue eye of my turquoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.

— Sylvia Plath (from Last Words)

You wrote of a woman who was not you,

from a time far past, when perhaps life and death

seemed simpler. I see her — a small woman,

contained, almost cosy.

Yet she was afraid, this ancient young woman

(for I do not believe she had grown old).

Walking through your life, did you feel like her,

afraid and needing comfort? You courted death.

Did you think — you who appeared so bold —

‘When the soles of my feet grow cold’?

And if so, how cold?

You aimed for the sun:

yourself your burning arrow,

flying into the eye of morning

fast and straight. That’s how you told it,

striking your target and blazing, fierce and free.

I wonder, though, about the other —

the you who bore children, fed them …

ordinary enough to be able to see:

‘The blue eye of my turquoise will comfort me’.

Copper cooking pots; we know them today

in our own time and culture.

These are the things that connect women

across places and times, races, religions —

these familiar things, our belongings

which have us belong, planted in our garden plots

and knowing the right way to grow.

Indeed it’s the small things that comfort us:

‘Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots…’

We don’t have rouge pots as such any more,

we Western women, but we still have

colours and textures we smooth on our faces;

we have our silks and laces, our jewels and robes.

You knew her, I know, this dead woman

from long ago. You make me know her as well.

That was your genius, to make us know and feel and see

whatever you wrote. So I must believe that you too

wanted those homely comforts, penning your own call:

‘Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.’

For the dVerse Form For All prompt: Paying Tribute ....the Glosa

I was too late to link to Form For All, so I'll link to the next Open Link Night. If you find this earlier, no need to come back from OLN.

A Glosa is a tribute poem to another poet, weaving one of their quatrains into one's own verse, as above, and trying to write in something of their style. It was only when I was embroiled that I realised — if one is going to attempt this with a great poet, one had better be a great poet oneself! I'm not; she is. Nevertheless, it was such hard work that I am not going to just hide it away now. :)

Click on the link on 'Last Words', above, to see the Plath poem in full.