Thursday, October 05, 2006

Poppies in October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly --

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.



--Sylvia Plath

8 comments:

LoveandSalt said...

ohmygod I have to have poppies! I am so greedy. Must plant poppies. Mythical opiate of the senses.
Was Persephone picking poppies? I'm probably making that up.
Yours in endless narcosis, C

michi said...

"Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly --"
was one of the first lines that made me fall in love with poetry.
m

Valerie Loveland said...

I love Plath's poems about poppies. Thanks for posting this.

The Sublibrarian said...

For me, it was another Plath line: "Love set you going like a fat gold watch." All the assonance, consonance, alliteration...and the final three accented syllables.

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Wonderful poem.

An incredible line: O my God, what am I

Thanks for the post.

Suzanne said...

Poppies! Everyone should have poppies. My pleasure, folks.

Sublibrarian, yes, that line is one of my favorites too.

And Sam, that's the line that gets me in this poem, every time.

C. Dale said...

This remains one of my favorite by Plath. It still makes my brain crackle.

Pamela Johnson Parker said...

For me, it was the explosion of "The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here," that sent me headfirst into Plath--till then I had been resistant. "Tulips" was the first, but this is one of my favorites, too. Thanks for posting.

I think Persephone's downfall might have been the narcissus--not sure.