YEARS by Sylvia Plath

They enter as animals from the outer
Space of holly where spikes
Are not thoughts I turn on, like a Yogi,
But greenness, darkness so pure
They freeze and are.

O God, I am not like you
In your vacuous black,
Stars stuck all over, bright stupid confetti.
Eternity bores me,
I never wanted it.

What I love is
The piston in motion ----
My soul dies before it.
And the hooves of the horses,
There merciless churn.

And you, great Stasis ----
What is so great in that!
Is it a tiger this year, this roar at the door?
It is a Christus,
The awful

God-bit in him
Dying to fly and be done with it?
The blood berries are themselves, they are very still.

The hooves will not have it,
In blue distance the pistons hiss.

treasure

I have been losing a lot of things lately. This doesn’t normally happen to me. I am in the habit of temporarily misplacing things, but they are usually found in my pocket or underneath papers, clothing, etc. Most recently it was my mother’s gold wristband that I wear every day. It disappeared somewhere between my apartment and the train ride home to Pennsylvania for Easter. There were tears as I resigned to it being unfound. When I returned from PA, I realized that I couldn’t remember where'd left an important photograph of my parents. Still looking.

I lost something else recently, but I can’t even remember what it is.

On separate trips to Paris, I lost both earrings given to my mother when my parents first began dating. They were tiny little flower buds with sparkling gemstones in the center. One disappeared in the shower of my Parisienne lover's flat and the other, well, I am not sure. Also, a diamond earring went missing somewhere in Europe. It appears that that country owns me at the rate of jewelry that has been collected at my expense. In any event, I have left a dainty mark in a strange state of zero awareness. This is particularly curious for me because I don't believe in accidents and can usually recall where my footsteps have taken me.

Many years ago, a tiny teacher wallet photo of my mother slipped into the vast thought jungle of my desk. The photograph will most likely be uncovered when I finally exit my Astoria house. That’s a memory that I try to forget…

It appears that my subconscious is allowing certain imagery to disappear-- provoking me to remember--not the object, but the participant. My mother. Divine woman, my founder. It appears that I am shedding. Vacated skin can be found in nature—all natural waste, excess. Perhaps the various founders of my “skin” will take ownership of the life I have unknowingly allowed myself to exit.

Larvae live and develop inside of a cocoon and eventually emerge.
Moths, butterflies…winged bugs.

Le poisson du changement.

Happy Mother’s Day, Willarena.