Only Happy When It Rains

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately

Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.

I am not cruel, only truthful‚

The eye of a little god, four-cornered.

Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.

It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long

I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

~ From Mirror by Sylvia Plath

Primordial

Struggle

My soul is like the oar that momently

Dies in a desperate stress beneath the wave,

Then glitters out again and sweeps the sea:

Each second I’m new-born from some new grave.

Sidney Lanier