The Moon and the Yew Tree

John Atkinson Grimshaw

The Moon and the Yew Tree

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility
Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky ----
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up, it has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness ----
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars
Inside the church, the saints will all be blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over the cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness -- blackness and silence.

Sylvia Plath

Full moon last night. Moon poems are plentiful, but not many are as memorable as Plath's. 

That first line sits in my brain and jumps out at me once in a while. I love the way she mixes flat factual

 statements with deeply subjective ones, speaking from an inner mythology. What astounds me is 

that her darkness and despair is so beautiful. It's wild but controlled, careful and yet full of abandon.

 So striking. That one line, "I have fallen a long way." reminds me of Rilke's poem "Fall" 

(from my second post on this blog), "We are all falling now." That phrase is so evocative. And her repetition 

of the colours blue and black - coldness and silence. It's uncomfortable to find someone so brilliant in their 

anguish. Part of me is all admiration, while the other part is chilled.