Ariel

by Sylvia Plath  

Stasis in darkness.

Then the substanceless blue   

Pour of tor and distances.

God’s lioness,   

How one we grow,

Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to   

The brown arc

Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye   

Berries cast dark   

Hooks—

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,   

Shadows.

Something else

Hauls me through air—

Thighs, hair;

Flakes from my heels.

White

Godiva, I unpeel—

Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I

Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.   

The child’s cry

Melts in the wall.   

And I

Am the arrow,

The dew that flies

Suicidal, at one with the drive   

Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.

from: Collected Poems. Copyright 1960.