I watched the film Sylvia the other night, which I found incredibly moving and was haunted by the story and characters for a few days. Not just Sylvia’s death, but reading more about Assia Wevill and her death with her daughter too. So utterly tragic. I was looking to see if I could find any of Assia’s poems but she didn’t publish any and the internet is very quiet about her. Given that the hours change tonight and it was the Spring Equinox last week, this poem by Sylvia Plath seems appropriate.
Prologue to Spring
The winter landscape hangs in balance now,
Transfixed by glare of blue from gorgon’s eye;
The skaters freese within a stone tableau.
Air alters into glass and the whole sky
Grows brittle as a tilted china bowl;
Hill and valley stiffen row on row.
Each fallen leaf is trapped by spell of steel,
Crimped like fern in the quartz atmosphere;
Repose of scultpure holds the country still.
What coutermagic can undo the snare
Which has stopped the season in its tracks
And suspended all that might occur?
Locked in crystal caskets are the lakes,
Yet as we wonder what cam come of ice
Green-singing birds explore from all the rocks.