|
Darkness
as black as your eyelid,
poketricks of stars,
the yellow mouth,
the smell of a stranger,
dawn coming up,
dark blue,
no stars,
the smell of a love,
warmer now
as authenic as soap,
wave after wave
of lightness
and the birds in their chains
going mad with throat noises,
the birds in their tracks
yelling into their cheeks like clowns,
lighter, lighter,
the stars gone,
the trees appearing in their green hoods,
the house appearing across the way,
the road and its sad macadam,
the rock walls losing their cotton,
lighter, lighter,
letting the dog out and seeing
fog lift by her legs,
a gauze dance,
lighter, lighter,
yellow, blue at the tops of trees,
more God, more God everywhere,
lighter, lighter,
more world everywhere,
sheets bent back for people,
the strange heads of love
and breakfast,
that sacrament,
lighter, yellower,
like the yolk of eggs,
the flies gathering at the windowpane,
the dog inside whining for good
and the day commencing,
not to die, not to die,
as in the last day breaking,
a final day digesting itself,
lighter, lighter,
the endless colors,
the same old trees stepping toward me,
the rock unpacking its crevices,
breakfast like a dream
and the whole day to live through,
steadfast, deep, interior.
After the death,
after the black of black,
the lightness,—
not to die, not to die—
that God begot.
|
Comments
So delighted that this highlight of Anne Sexton's work is available on the web. Within the group of Fury poems and her body of work as a whole it is an outstanding piece of work. The detached, and dare I even say delighted, point of view of the beginning of an ordinary day connects Sexton viscerally to Joyce and Woolf. When I read the collected poems, over 15 years ago, Sunrises just leapt out at me, a catalytic impression. Within the her body of work this is Sexton's red cap in a lush green landscape.
Virginia Trembles from United States