Written by
Sylvia Plath |
But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
Sucking up minerals and motherly love
So that each March I may gleam into leaf,
Nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
Attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
Unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
And a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
And I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.
Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
The trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them--
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
And I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
The the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.
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Written by
Dorothy Parker |
Why is it, when I am in Rome,
I'd give an eye to be at home,
But when on native earth I be,
My soul is sick for Italy?
And why with you, my love, my lord,
Am I spectacularly bored,
Yet do you up and leave me- then
I scream to have you back again?
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Written by
Heather McHugh |
The dog has shrunk between the brake and clutch.
His shaking shakes a two-ton truck.
From a God
so furious, he cannot hide his hide.
Outside,
in the world at large, black hours are being
pearled and shafted.
A tree stands out
spectacularly branched; the mind's eye
grows alert.
This thing can hurt.
It had us once, it's having volts
of big idea again—about
thirteen a minute.
Do we need
to know more? Are we sure?
Just wait—a brain this insecure
may need another bolt be driven in it.
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