To Be Looked at (from the Other Side of the Glass)

A few days ago in my journal I recorded a synesthetic image that reads: “my mind is made of glass and fever” and has “too many sharp edges.” This, and an article concerning mental health I was asked to write for a newspaper, provoke me to share some of my favourite poems by Sylvia Plath which resonate with me emotionally.   Full Fathom Five   Old man, you surface seldom. Then you come in with the tide's coming When seas wash cold, foam- Capped: white hair, white beard, far-flung, A dragnet, rising, falling, as waves Crest and trough. Miles long Extend the radial sheaves Of your spread hair, in which wrin- kling skeins Knotted, caught, survives The old myth of orgins Unimaginable. You float near As kneeled ice-mountains Of the north, to be steered clear Of, not fathomed. All obscurity Starts with a danger: Your dangers are many. I Cannot look much but your form suffers Some strange injury And seems to die: so vapors Ravel to clearness on the dawn sea. The muddy rumors O...