"If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression
Of something beautiful, but annihilating.
Both of you are great light borrowers.
Her O-mouth grieves at the world; yours is unaffected,
And your first gift is making stone out of everything.
I wake to a mausoleum; you are here,
Ticking your fingers on the marble table, looking for cigarettes,
Spiteful as a woman, but not so nervous,
And dying to say something unanswerable.
The moon, too, abases her subjects,
But in the daytime she is ridiculous.
Your dissatisfactions, on the other hand,
Arrive through the mailslot with loving regularity,
White and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.
No day is safe from news of you,
Walking about in Africa maybe, but thinking of me."
'The Rival'
by Sylvia Plath
Part of my morning routine is opening a book of poetry. Today Sylvia Plath took hold of me. I saw a picture of her which for some reason entranced me on Monday night. She has such soft features, like a palpable love resides in her face- and at the same time it shows the burden of her painful existence. Her face crowns itself with a low-rumbling strength that her laugh lines betray (for me at least). Her hair is taken care of, but that's about all - her outfit shows some attempt at loving herself but a loss of the feeling of love within her - as if it was so large it exploded and left residue inside her heart. Her collar bone whispers into the heart about her absolutely God given femininity. Her eyes, even static and frozen in the photograph, make me feel as if she is gazing right to the most basic core of my heart. That fertile empty ground that most people do not have the courage to behold right away; that core goodness in all of us which for some reasons frighten most of us. Her eyes, her look, doesn't even struggle, it just looks right at my molten center - and then I feel she understands it all enough to teach me about it love me for it - and even love me more maybe? I don't know [shrug]. But her look puts me at peace and it feels I am not so crazy - if crazy at all. Like the world is crazy, and so everything I am is seen as wrong - but that she understands, and that she felt it too, and that she cares and loves me for being one of her and is happy to be one of me. I don't know my friends, or non-friends, this picture makes me want to love her and so keep her from what happened to her, to the best of my ability. I don't know, I feel crazy even typing this - but maybe Sylvia knows...
She looks like a girl gone, or going mad; as if to be at peace with the madness driving her to suicide. Her power and might buried under a pretty dress and a broken heart. Her mouth gives it all away.
I can imagine her poem was for her ex-husband, or husband at the time, I haven't done the adequate research on it yet, if I will even. Her mystery breathes out of that photograph, breathing it's complete lack of defense and open story. She is so amazing that Bob Dylan (who I clung to back when I was 15) makes better sense as I get to know her and her poetry. She is like those others I was opened to, who are blessed and cursed with an unflinching ability to dictate what hearts say. To use always failing words to still somehow convey what the feeling is - or if anything, since all is so dynamic, place a feeling deep within oneself.
Welcome to my group of dead friends Sylvia; this is probably one of more letters to you in our new relationship - where ever you may be I hope you know how much I appreciate you. Even the way your name 'Sylvia' is spelled, its so beautiful. Thank you for sharing so openly and in turn, helping me open more to myself. I guess it's God through you and in me hmm?
Karan
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