Child by Slyvia Plath
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.
Here's another poem I have loved over time. Even before my own children, I read and memorized this poem. The explicit clarity of the first line, which in having children, has only grown more true for me. That yes, to look into my child's eye, and truly become absorbed in it, there lies such a consuming beauty. Yet, at times the clarity of my child's eye has been hard to look into. At times, this eye stands a measures of myself. This eye, a mirror, looking back at me, reflecting what I feel I've done right and also, even more glaring-- reflecting what I am not.
In the early days of Tessa's life, her eyes haunted me. Her eyes seemed to bury into me, rubbing raw my deepest fears. Here, in my arms, a body so frail, so easily crushable. A life given to me, to shape, and disfigure. My ridgity would suffocate her, my overbearing emotional life would drown her, my self loathing would become her own.
My failings will break this child.
How could I mother her?
Looking back, the third day of her life marked the beginning of my postpartum depression. I was struggling to nurse her, sitting next to the window, the fall sun lowering, it's slant light signaling the impending winter.
I was afraid. And would after some time, become less afraid. Her eyes would soften or rather my perception of her eyes would shift. Some months later, I would find myself embraced by her blue, white eyes, speckled by gold, softly repeating the lines of Slyvia Plath..."Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing."
