Morning Song -  Sylvia Plath

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I’m no more your mother

Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow

Effacement at the wind’s hand.

All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. the window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.

 http://www.glogster.com/ericavallone/flypaper-glog-by-ericavallone/g-6l78na4sh2a45on6aajkpa0

I have chosen the poem Morning Song by Sylvia Plath basically because I liked it, and it evoked several images while I was reading it. In this poem we can see from the point of view of a mother the different stages she goes through from her pregnancy to the moment the baby utters her first sounds. First she describes with happiness her pregnancy and the moment she gives birth to her child. Then, we are told about her worries and fears as she gets up at night to see her baby is sleeping peacefully. And finally, she describes her baby’s attempt to produce sounds in the morning.

I associate the poem with soft colours, such as white, grey, pastel pink because they symbolize purity. For me, the purest thing in the world is a young baby. I tried to include a picture that show every moment the mother describes. The poem makes me feel peace, love, and tenderness.

This poem could be related to the role of women played by Mrs Ramsay in To the Lighthouse. A kind of mother devoted to her children, being unconditional. It also reminds me of the character of Annette in Wide Sargasso Sea, especially her relationship with her son, Pierre. As he was a handicapped child, she focused her attention on him. Because he was weak, she had to protect him all the time.

They are three examples of caring and protective mothers.