A sonnet for Sylvia

Sylvia and parents

“Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted”
- Sylvia Plath’s epitaph

O! daughter dear, on this mid-western afternoon,
When I can see all the way to Sacramento, I cry
For you, Ariel-blue, in all your golden-girlhood,
Too lovely for a life of pettiness and strife
You caught a boat to England, never returned.
No Nazi goblin me, an extraordinary Jew like you,
Beautifully clever Ariel-blue…