The air is a mill of hooks -- <br />Questions without answer, <br />Glittering and drunk as flies <br />Whose kiss stings unbearably <br />In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer. <br /> <br />I remember <br />The dead smell of sun on wood cabins, <br />The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets. <br />Once one has seen God, what is the remedy? <br />Once one has been seized up <br /> <br />Without a part left over, <br />Not a toe, not a finger, and used, <br />Used utterly, in the sun's conflagration, the stains <br />That lengthen from ancient cathedrals <br />What is the remedy? <br /> <br />The pill of the Communion tablet, <br />The walking beside still water? Memory? <br />Or picking up the bright pieces <br />Of Christ in the faces of rodents, <br />The tame flower-nibblers, the ones <br /> <br />Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable -- <br />The humpback in his small, washed cottage <br />Under the spokes of the clematis. <br />Is there no great love, only tenderness? <br />Does the sea <br /> <br />Remember the walker upon it? <br />Meaning leaks from the molecules. <br />The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats, <br />The children leap in their cots. <br />The sun blooms, it is a geranium. <br /> <br />The heart has not stopped.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mystic/
