Sunday, September 11, 2005

In Memory of 9/11

This article in The Jeruselem Times describes today's commemorative plans in New York.

...and a poem by Sylvia Plath.

Edge
by Sylvia Plath

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

**********************8

I would also highly recommend the very moving poem posted on Chella's Blog today.


Pris

3 comments:

chella said...

thanks for posting "edge." i like the sparse but descriptive image of the "perfected woman."
a phrase that haunts: "hood of bone." c

Pris said...

Yes, she has magic in her words.

Pris said...

Isn't she a great poet??