Reflections

I am not cruel, only truthful

Sylvia Plath was one of the most dynamic and controversial poets and novelists of the 20th century, known as much for her cynical and brutally realistic portrayal of life as for her turbulent personal story of chronic depression, marriage to poet Ted Hughes and suicide at the age of just 30. Her poems frequently strip away the polite veneer and unearth conflicts of human nature and our primeval fears.One of my favourites is a poem called "Mirror" which depicts a woman's hidden insecurities. It is somewhat melancholy and bitter, like all of Sylvia's works, though it manages to evoke strong images with a few apt words. I especially like the last two haunting lines which capture the poignant essence of the poem.

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Mirror by Sylvia Plath

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.

Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Source: dailymail.co.uk

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.