[lit-ideas] Re: Tenth Psalm
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 21:31:49 -0700
JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote:
> "TENTH PSALM
>
> Anne Sexton
>
>
> For as the baby springs out like a starfish into her million light
> years Anne sees that she must climb her own mountain.
>
> For as she eats wisdom like the halves of a pear she puts one
> foot in front of the other. She climbs the dark wing.
>
> For as her child grows Anne grows and there is salt and
> cantaloupe and molasses for all.
>
> For as Anne walks, the music walks and the family lies down
> in milk.
>
> For I am not locked up.
>
> For I am placing fist over fist on rock and plunging into the
> altitude of words. The silence of words.
>
> For the husband sells his rain to God and God is well pleased
> with His family.
>
> For they fling together against hardness and somewhere, in
> another room, a light is clicked on by gentle fingers.
>
> For death comes to friends, to parents, to sisters. Death comes
> with its bagful of pain yet they do not curse the key they were
> given to hold.
>
> For they open each door and it gives them a new day at the
> yellow window.
>
> For the child grows to a woman, her breasts coming up like
> the moon while Anne rubs the peace stone.
>
> For the child starts up her own mountain (not being locked in)
> and reaches the coastline of grapes.
>
> For Anne and her daughter master the mountain and again
> and again. Then the child finds a man who opens like the sea.
>
> For that daughter must build her own city and fill it with her
> own oranges, her own words.
>
> For Anne walked up and up and finally over the years until
> she was old as the moon and with its naggy voice.
>
> For Anne had climbed over eight mountains and saw the children
> washing the tiny statues in the square.
>
> For Anne sat down with the blood of a hammer and built a
> tombstone for herself and Christopher sat beside her and was
> well pleased with their red shadow."
------------------------------------
It reminds me of Christopher Smart's reflections on his cat, Jeoffrey, a
section from a long poem written in the 18th C in a mental institution,
in which each line, as here, begins with 'For…'
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1945.html
I hadn't known of Sexton's poem before now. Thanks.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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