Anne Sexton Poem

I think I might also use this blog as a place to collect stuff I think is thought provoking. . . I was wandering the web and found this poem by Anne Sexton. I am not sure why I find it thought provoking, but I do. It was probably the title that triggered me. I feel like a lot of people want me to stop inquiring about myself or them. Of course none of the readers who I know read this blog feel that way :). But other people do. And frankly it makes me a little crabby! (so j. there's some anger for you). j. always wishes I voiced when I am angry. Crabby is about the best I can do.


For John, Who Begs Me Not To Inquire Further

Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind,
in the commonplaces of the asylum
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.
And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally, an accident of hope.
I tapped my own head;
it was glass, an inverted bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.
And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.
Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.
This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,
although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all...
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face.

-- Anne Sexton
in _To Bedlam and Part Way Back_ 1960