Sheep In Fog
The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.
The train leaves a line of breath.
O slow
Horse the colour of rust,
Hooves, dolorous bells -
All morning the
Morning has been blackening,
A flower left out.
My bones hold a stillness, the far
Fields melt my heart.
They threaten
To let me through to a heaven
Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
-Sylvia Plath, Ariel
This feels like the English countryside- strange, how a place can define the emotion of a poem if so. England felt like this for me too. It makes you wonder about the poet and environment relationship.
ReplyDeleteWith all of the images she chose, I loved how she left in just a sprinkle of hope within "the flower left out". At least it feels like hope to me...
I read the hope as a possible punishment. Heaven is a threat by them, whoever “they” are.
DeleteI love the full circle of this poem. It goes back to the stars/starless, hill/field, and people/they. And I love the play on words and ambiguity of “all morning the morning,”
The more I thought about the image of a flower being left out....to essentially wither and to die, it really showed me the hope that I have inside my own mind. When I think of a flower being left out I think of something special, secret even, simple pleasure, romance, and of course, in my mind the flower was given water. But the more I kept reading this- the flower is absolutely like a "possible punishment" as you mentioned!!! Instead of to thrive and bloom and as an aspect of color, it definitely seems like it is to starve, to wilt, to slowly endure the end. I get so excited for poetry. I need to read slower. It really helps me to reread poems after you have read them.
Delete