Monday, March 23, 2009

Another


I saw with sadness this morning that Nicholas Hughes, who as a baby slept through perhaps the most infamous scene of 20th century poetry--the suicide of his mother Sylvia Plath in 1962--killed himself last week in Alaska, where he worked as a biologist.

I had wondered before what had become of him and his sister.

Here is Plath's poem "Child:"

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new

Whose names you meditate--
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

No doubt they'll be blaming this on Ted Hughes too.

Leon's current assignment said...

Very sad, indeed. And I liked the last few words by a father about his son.

Anonymous said...

Life completes the most obscene perfect circles sometimes.