Mirror
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.
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.
Oud worden is een vreemd proces. Het is alleen de buitenkant die ouder wordt. Soms schrik ik als ik onverwacht een blik op mezelf werp in de spiegel. Wie is die oude persoon? Die vermoeide blik, die lijnen naast de mond. De tijdelijkheid van dit bestaan, en het onvermijdelijke einde, is de enige zekerheid die het leven biedt, een paradoxale gedachte.
