2018-12-09


Winter Words
--Slyvia Plath 
In the pale prologue
of daybreak
tongues of intrigue
cease to speak. 
Moonshine splinters
as birds hush;
transfixed the antlers
in the bush. 
With fur and feather,
buck and cock
softly author
icebound book. 
No chinese painter’s
brown and buff
could quill a quainter
calligraph. 
On stilted legs the
bluejays go
their minor leagues a-
cross the snow, 
inscribing cryptic
anagrams
on their skeptic
search for crumbs. 
Chipmunks enter
stripes of black
in the winter
almanac. 
A scribbling squirrel
makes a blot
of gray apparel,
hides a nut. 
On chastely figured
trees and stones
fate is augured
in bleak lines. 
With shorthand scratches
on white scroll
bark of birches
tells a tale. 
Ice like parchment
shrouds the pond,
marred by misprint
of north wind. 
Windowpane wears
gloss of frost
till dawnlight blurs
and all’s erased.

A poem found in a letter Plath wrote to her mother while attending Smith College (per Faber & Faber).

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