Quote from Sylvia Plath, August 1950

I am drawn to this quote over and over again. For some strange reason, it resonates so deeply with me, perhaps because of the intellectual insight (for someone aged 18), for what it foreshadows (suicide, of course), and for what it seems to contrast with later in her life. In any case, here is that passage, no. 7, from pg. 9 of The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962, as edited by Karen V. Kukl:

"With me, the present is forever, and forever is always shifting, flowing, melting. The second is life. And when it is gone, it is dead. But you can't start over with a new second. You have to judge by what is dead. It's like quicksand...hopeless from the start. A story, a picture, can renew sensation a little, but not enough, not enough. Nothing is real except present, and already, I feel the weight of centuries smothering me. Some girl a hundred years ago once lived as I do. And she is dead. I am the present, but I know I, too, will pass. The high moment, the burning flash, come and are gone, continuous quicksand. And I don't want to die."

Temples (through an open window)

If you don't believe in God
what is your temple? I am asked
as I proclaim, often nimbly,
my religious beliefs.

The world, I say softly,
do you need a single
spot to find solace and peace
of mind, to come together for
common purpose, to find yourself:

what about the willow perched
on the banks of a babbling brook,
contemplative counterbalance
to water chatter,

the square where we all rather
to rally together against injustice,
brusk cries, cascading walls of sound
rushing through a city,

or any number of places that
in thinking about them you are
touched, moved beyond your
rooted state and forced to branch
out.

Beginning Reflection on Religion

The following is something I wrote a while back regarding religion. I am atheist. A few poems that should be coming up soon have to deal with the faith of atheism and some other interesting topics:

"Why should I be force-fed
morality I remember wondering
at 10, not in those exact words
(can one ever remember exact words,
save savants?)
but in the essence,
just 10 and wrestling with a lion,
wanting to find my own morality.

I should not be force-fed,
I exclaimed then,
I should not be force-fed.

Foundations crumbled
in the blink of an eye:
sin abandoned and so too
Christian morality,
the extinguishing of fire
and crumbling of
the ascending stairway."

Seaside

Water lapping at my feet
I am transported to another world, not
of my own creation but of another

lyric(s);
ebb and flow of water,
collect, overbalance, and fall,
collect and collect, that is all.
Woolf in the waves,
wrapped up in evocative language

that speaks to the weary soul I possess,
tired from constant uncertainty
building from the displaced sensation,
nights in bed,
head resting on pillow with sheep remedy,
useless now, the only known
'comfort' from the deluge.

But now, channeling Woolf, I am...
free, in some sense at least,
free to dream of another world,
free to witness soul melt
to prose-poetry, enraptured

And so I lie by the ocean shore,
daytime passing me by,
unabashedly, on its
daily course, dreaming in her
essence:

if this is all life could be,
just think what a content person
I'd be, just think of the ease.

The thought clings to the
water droplets on my feet,
but I notice at once the
first signs of night approaching,
as the sky colours began to deepen--
purples, reds and oranges illuminating
the cloud puffs.
I begin to doubt this statement,

postmodern theory imbued in my cells,
I begin a dangerous process,
deconstruction of self
and the excavation of lies.

Whether or not I have wished it,
daytime peace disintegrates to
jungle adventure, last rays of sun
vanishing to pitch,
"that is all" losing volume to
questions fit for Atlas.

Walking back to our bungalow,
feeling sand in toes, last marker
of lazy day guided by whimsical
imagination, the process of
deconstruction unravels

in my head questions battle
one another for control,
answers emerging from shadows,
only to be shot down by a force
most powerful-- Doubt.
And yet it becomes clear, with each step
in the sand, the ultimate
question to-night is:
Do I just want to dream forever?

Lament from Mount Meru

In shadow of Mount Meru
I lose myself,
all that colours me
washed out
as I remember him:

six months earlier
he stood in this same shadow,
sweat on brow from
tropical air,
fulfilling a wish
in the penultimate scene
of his life,

now examining this
ancient temple in the lush
Cambodian lands,
brilliance and mystery
mimicked in his own life;
or the happy
moments at least--

I break from the image
of him as I try to imagine
what he was thinking
as he stood before this
divine structure

knowing he had only
three months left,
inoperable pancreatic cancer
a deadly yeast quickly
expanding to vital organs,

but I cannot imagine it:
I am not dying too soon.
I am in the prime of
my life, living without
any concern for the Reaper
to whisper, "it's time."

I just stare at the
unfathomable beauty,
unable to pen an adequate
word for what I seen,

I just stare at the
unfathomable beauty
and think how much more
I have left to see.

In an instant, I realise,
maybe my thoughts are
not much different from
his, though motivations
are different:

we all live for great moments
and once we reach the
pinnacle, we wonder what
else is out there,
if there is anything more
beautiful, more wondrous,

there is no way not to look
at Angkor Wat and think
how much further toward
happiness can the soul ascend,

even for the dying,
chants of ages practically
ring out in heavy air.

Snapshot

Staring into the sunset, I find myself:
in the warm hues I rediscover my
conscience, guided by the rhythmic
beating of my heart, thump thump,

and at once I feel lost, swallowed
up by unforgiving landscape,
swampy bayou, humidity laden
air, and worse yet, crushed, a
primrose plant in the hand of a
giant, losing what I once had: my form.

I want it all back,
I howl, wolf-like, like in storybooks,
snout upturned to a sliver of moon.

I WANT IT ALL BACK,
louder this time, angry torrent,
endless stream of mind's dissatisfaction.

No longer able to look at the sun
setting directly on a flat horizon,
I grab my camera and begin capturing
moments in time,

capturing them to remember,
in each viewing,
the day I rediscovered what was lost,

capturing them to remember,
in each viewing, desire
to bend the boundaries of
society like a master of glass work,
towards ethereal beauty.

And then sun sets, and dreams fade,
and all I have are these photographs
to remind me of what I want
but cannot seem to have:

caged bird who desires
migration across continents
to test the limits of his flight.

Rather than becoming inspired,
I just grow more desolate, the weight
of centuries and injustices pushing
at my sides, slowly sucking out all the air,
delirium the next step,

I find myself
closer to the precipice of madness,
sooner to become a 21st century
"Howl," best minds of a generation
lost on some otherworldly tangent.

Where is a way out?
Where is a way out?

Outside cloaked in darkness,
I just look at the photographs again,
but nothing new comes to me,
no resolution, no solace,

sunrise, sunrise, bring something new,
I plead, I moan, until I can no more
and peter out, to silence, to sleep.

Seeing Eye