Salix

I know the bottom too well. The path beyond my garden, birthed:
I fear it greatly.
It is my birthright: my inheritance.

It is the formless darkness,
Its frustrating absence,
For its expanse outpaces sunlight’s nourishment.

I’ve loved in the dark.
By both touch and muscle-memory
Coarse: I burrow deeper, suckling at your earth.

Or suckling at another’s red clay, urgently,
For when a heart is formed, I follow it to fruition,
Blending, blending.

What nectar you know of that sounds so sweet?
Feel stamen’s stamina, and be healed.
Rooting in fruitless void: finding succulent flesh.

Sunrise finds us intertwined by audacity.
Clinging to sap and stem;
Elongated, deciduous, draping, reaching for more.

Flailing about, numerous cat-o-nines, self-flogged,
Beaten by breezy beauty
We stir the scent of the now: whispering wishes.

Morning light chases darkness: she lurks behind me,
Elusive in plain sight.
Her emptiness mocks me. Or compels me to seek fullness.

I am drunk. I am drunk.
And yet parched, I thirst still, knowing not what I seek.
Your dreams are not mine, yet I still drink of them.

You course through me, I whisper for more.
The breeze carries my voice
Finding nature’s comfort, some mingle with my plea.

Many are just as fearful as me
Or they inhabit their lie;
Ignoring their murmurs of soul’s torment via ripened flesh.

Seasons birth, die, rebirth.
I am rooted, and yet propelled irrevocably towards rot
Is my senescence driving my urgency?

It is the newly-formed heart I chase.
Not the intercrossed sowing
So wondrous in its embrace of fleeting fullness.

From my bones, sketch in charcoal
He cheated the abyss. His flaws, a numerous, loving greed.
He loved. He loved. He loved.
***

Written for NaPoWriMo Day 29 prompt:

Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem based on the Plath Poetry Project’s calendar. Simply pick a poem from the calendar, and then write a poem that responds or engages with your chosen Plath poem in some way.

This one was rather intimidating. While I respect and emulate the greats like Poe, Wild, Hemmingway, Langston Hughes and even Chicago greats like Carl Sandburg and Gwendolyn Brooks, I have always feared Sylvia Plath. She was a unique genius, and emulating her work is a lot like trying to describe the void. I’d much rather look away.

Anyway, the poem I chose was Elm (the April 19 entry), and as I feared, It kind of sucked me in, chewed me up, and spit me out. I didn’t even have time to write my day 30 poem.

Oh well, there’s always tomorrow…