Poetry Friday — Sylvia Plath

We got so much rain this week — I’ve never seen so much rain.
It rained until the creeks spilled their banks and the roads washed out and the water mains broke and the trees lost limbs and the rocky cliffs crumbled.
And then it rained a little more. 

When weather is that epic in proportion, it’s hard not to assign it greater meaning, not to read it like tea leaves. Maybe there’s a message or a lesson or a story.
Or maybe it’s just rain…

Black Rook in Rainy Weather

BY SYLVIA PLATH

On the stiff twig up there
Hunches a wet black rook
Arranging and rearranging its feathers in the rain.
I do not expect a miracle
Or an accident

To set the sight on fire
In my eye, nor seek
Any more in the desultory weather some design,
But let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
Without ceremony, or portent.

(Read the rest here…)

10 Responses to “Poetry Friday — Sylvia Plath”

  1. karen_edmisten

    Leave it to Plath to find a fourteenth way of looking at a blackbird. Beautiful.

    We had epic rains this past summer, too … I hope you’re all safe and sound amidst the destruction.