Child -- Sylvia Plath

Guest poem submitted by Dan Percival :

(Poem #366) 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 name 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. -- Sylvia Plath

This is one of those poems I am often tempted to call the best in the
English language.  Though "free verse," the meter and sound are
carefully structured to support the poem's literal and emotional
content.  I haven't seen any piece of writing that more poignantly and
subtly expresses both the hope for a new beginning that a child inspires
and the foreboding that the hurtful constructions of the adult world
will shape each new life and re-enact themselves.  I wish I had the
leisure to describe this in more detail...

I found a bio of Plath at
http://metalab.unc.edu/cheryb/women/Sylvia-Plath--bio and a shorter but
better-formatted one at [broken link] http://www.poets.org/LIT/poet/splath.htm

Dan Percival.