Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind
Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.
Anne SextonThe little girl skipped by under the wrinkled oak leaves and held fast to a replica of herself.
Anne SextonLook to your heart
that flutters in and out like a moth.
God is not indifferent to your need.
You have a thousand prayers
but God has one.
The future is a fog that is still hanging out over the sea, a boat that floats home or does not.
Anne SextonThe town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The summer has seized you,
as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw
lemons as large as your desk-side globe-
that miniature map of the world-
and I could mention, too,
the market stalls of mushrooms
and garlic bugs all engorged.
Or I even think of the orchard next door,
where the berries are done
and the apples are beginning to swell.
And once, with our first backyard,
I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans
we couldn’t eat.
She suffers according to the digits
of my hate. I hear the filaments
of alabaster. I would lie down
with them and lift my madness
off like a wig. I would lie
outside in a room of wool
and let the snow cover me.
Paris white or flake white
or argentine, all in the washbasin
of my mouth, calling “Oh.”
I am empty. I am witless.
Death is here. There is no
other settlement.
I lay there silently,
hoarding my small dignity.
I did not ask about the gate or the closet.
I did not question the bedtime ritual
where, on the cold bathroom tiles,
I was spread out daily
and examined for flaws.
I did not know
that my bones,
those solids, those pieces of sculpture
would not splinter.
Sometimes the soul takes pictures of things it has wished for, but never seen.
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