words. her last before she died.

Words

After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes travelling
Off from the centre like horses. The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock
That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road______
Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.


Sylvia Plath.