Putting Plath to Rest

Finished reading The Bronze Bow to Olivia's ancient history class (six fifth-grade homeschoolers). I cried through the last few pages. They're used to my being sensitive by now; someone usually says, "Here she goes; get the Kleenex." They felt that the end didn't wrap things up enough. I think the author just does not underestimate young readers as so many do.

Am picking through another book of poems, but won't read all: Americans' Favorite Poems edited by Pinsky and Dietz. It's a wonderful collection of classics, and each is prefaced by a letter or two written by Americans of all ages and occupations. Sometimes the letters are as moving as the poems themselves. Sophia picked up a copy at a booksale and has been sharing poems with Zoe at dinner each night. Just hearing this made me pull out my copy to read some works by Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Donald Hall, Seamus Heaney.

Finished Plath's Collected Poems last night, too. Here is the last poem of her life:

Edge

The woman is perfected.
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it's over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.