love letter by sylvia plath

LOVE LETTER

not easy to state the change you made.
if i 'm alive now, then i was dead,
though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
staying put according to habit.
you didn't just toe me an inch, no-
nor leave me to set my small bald eye
skyward again, without hope, of course,
of apprehending blueness, or stars.

that wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
masked among black rocks as a black rock
in the white hiatus of winter-
like my neighbours, taking no pleasure
in the million perfectly-chiselled
cheeks alighting each moment to melt
my cheek of basalt. They turned to tears,
angels weeping over dull natures,
but didn't convince me. those tears froze.
each dead head a visor of ice.

and i slept on like a bent finger.
the first thing i saw sheer air
and the locked drops rising in a dew
limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
dense and expressionless round about.
i didn't know what to make of it.
i shone, mica-scaled, and unfolded
to pour myself out like a fluid
among bird feet and the stems of plants.
i wasn't fooled. i knew you at once.

tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
my fingers-lenght grew lucent as glass.
i started to bud like a March twig:
an arm and a leg, an arm, a leg.
from stone to cloud, so i ascended.
now i resemble a sort of god
floating through the air in my soul-shift
pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

SYLVIA PLATH
" love letter" in "crossing the water".