MY FAVORITE POEM

I know everyone loves reading poems! Today I speak of one such poem that melted my heart and has stayed with me for the longest time. The poem is MIRROR written by Silvia Plath. A wonderful poem that makes us reflect on our lives! I have mentioned the entire poem first for you guys to read it if you haven’t already and then I describe exactly what it makes me feel 🙂

POEM-:

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.

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.

How beautifully the mirror addresses the audience saying that it is exact, it does not hide anything. It is brutally honest and consumes whatever it sees. It tries to tell us that even though we might detest our own appearance, it isn’t the mirror’s fault. The mirror is only trying to be truthful and non judgemental. It calls itself “eye of the god”. It holds darkness responsible for separation, alas! Where is reflection in the dark?

In the second stanza the mirror takes the form of a lake. Where in a women is searching for who she really is by deeply looking at her reflection in the water. The mirror calls the candles and the moon “liars” as their bright light makes the women look prettier than she actually is. The mirror condemns them for their dishonesty. But the women rewards the mirror’s honesty with tears. The women weeps in pain to see her unsatisfying but yet truthful appearance! But the mirror does realize that it has an important part to play in the woman’s life, because the woman returns each day with a burning light of hope despite being unsatisfied. The bright light of the women’s face brings light in the dark, says the mirror.

The mirror remarks, so philosophically, that so many ages have passed like this! And in so many years, the young girl who once used to search for her pretty face has now grown old and remarks by calling it a “terrible fish”!

Such a beautiful philosophical poem that preaches the fact that beauty fades away after time but personality stays forever. It is not the physical appearance that matters but the values we carry from within our heart. This poem will surely always remain special for me!