Once I was ordinary: <br />Sat by my father's bean tree <br />Eating the fingers of wisdom. <br />The birds made milk. <br />When it thundered I hid under a flat stone. <br /> <br />The mother of mouths didn't love me. <br />The old man shrank to a doll. <br />O I am too big to go backward: <br />Birdmilk is feathers, <br />The bean leaves are dumb as hands. <br /> <br />This month is fit for little. <br />The dead ripen in the grapeleaves. <br />A red tongue is among us. <br />Mother, keep out of my barnyard, <br />I am becoming another. <br /> <br />Dog-head, devourer: <br />Feed me the berries of dark. <br />The lids won't shut. Time <br />Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun <br />Its endless glitter. <br /> <br />I must swallow it all. <br /> <br />Lady, who are these others in the moon's vat —- <br />Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds? <br />In this light the blood is black. <br />Tell me my name.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/maenad/
