Embracing the Stark Reality: A Plath-Inspired Reflection on the Winter Season's Arrival

DECEMBER IS UPON US, AND THE CHILL IN THE AIR CONFIRMS WINTER'S DEFINITIVE ARRIVAL. THIS SEASONAL SHIFT, WHETHER SEEN AS TARDY BY SOME OR EARLY BY OTHERS, IS AN INESCAPABLE REALITY. REGARDLESS OF PERSONAL PREFERENCE FOR THE COLD, LET US SET ASIDE ALL COMPLAINT FOR A MOMENT. INSTEAD, WE CAN "EMBRACE" THE "WINTER" OF THIS YEAR BY TURNING OUR ATTENTION TO THE PIERCING VERSE OF SYLVIA PLATH, A POET WHOSE WORK RESONATES WITH STARK, BEAUTIFUL CLARITY.

WINTER TREES The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve. On their blotter of fog the trees Seem a botanical drawing. Memories growing, ring on ring, A series of weddings. Knowing neither abortions nor bitchery, Truer than women, They seed so effortlessly! Tasting the winds, that are footless, Waist-deep in history. Full of wings, otherworldliness. In this, they are Ledas. O mother of leaves and sweetness Who are these pietas? The shadows of ringdoves chanting, but chasing nothing. A WINTER SHIP At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of. Red and orange barges list and blister Shackled to the dock, outmoded, gaudy, And apparently indestructible. The sea pulses under a skin of oil. A gull holds his pose on a shanty ridgepole, Riding the tide of the wind, steady As wood and formal, in a jacket of ashes, The whole flat harbor anchored in The round of his yellow eye-button. A blimp swims up like a day-moon or tin Cigar over his rink of fishes. The prospect is dull as an old etching. They are unloading three barrels of little crabs. The pier pilings seem about to collapse And with them that rickety edifice Of warehouses, derricks, smokestacks and bridges In the distance. All around us the water slips And gossips in its loose vernacular, Ferrying the smells of cod and tar. Farther out, the waves will be mouthing icecakes — A poor month for park-sleepers and lovers. Even our shadows are blue with cold. We wanted to see the sun come up And are met, instead, by this iceribbed ship, Bearded and blown, an albatross of frost, Relic of tough weather, every winch and stay Encased in a glassy pellicle. The sun will diminish it soon enough: Each wave-tip glitters like a knife. WINTERING This is the easy time, there is nothing doing. I have whirled the midwife’s extractor, I have my honey, Six jars of it, Six cat’s eyes in the wine cellar, Wintering in a dark without window At the heart of the house Next to the last tenant’s rancid jam and the bottles of empty glitters– Sir So-and-so’s gin. This is the room I have never been in This is the room I could never breathe in. The black bunched in there like a bat, No light But the torch and its faint Chinese yellow on appalling objects– Black asininity. Decay. Possession. It is they who own me. Neither cruel nor indifferent, Only ignorant. This is the time of hanging on for the bees–the bees So slow I hardly know them, Filing like soldiers To the syrup tin To make up for the honey I’ve taken. Tate and Lyle keeps them going, The refined snow. It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers. They take it. The cold sets in. Now they ball in a mass, Black Mind against all that white. The smile of the snow is white. It spreads itself out, a mile-long body of Meissen, Into which, on warm days, They can only carry their dead. The bees are all women, Maids and the long royal lady. They have got rid of the men, The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors. Winter is for women– The woman, still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanis walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think. Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas Succeed in banking their fires To enter another year? What will they taste of, the Christmas roses? The bees are flying. They taste the spring. Adventures in Decorating: Still Loving Our Basement LVP ... Adventures in Decorating: Still Loving Our Basement LVP ...: Happy Thursday!   Whenever I walk down to the basement, admittedly, I'm still pleased by the refreshed view that greets us! Tha...