A Breath

A BREATH Remembering the holocaust, deep in the soonest dream Of a beloved is buried all my hope for you begun, So I need not wait with oil and cloves to teem Over the mind of history, or a silver gun – Or gas chamber with the power on When thousands surged and left their clothes behind Bereft of rings and ornament which shone As the glister of a tear, shedding was too kind - Not so bitter then, and as a lowered head Bids goodbye, to a grim life, like the slowing eye A candle gleam of light will haunt those dead Who all past passing, can multitudes descry In one poet living with expectation, thinking thrill was death Which came, in the last sentence before your final breath. (on the anniversary of the death of Sylvia Plath, February 11, 1963)