the hearts of sheep

 

there is no life higher than the grasstops
or the hearts of sheep, and the wind
pours by like destiny, bending
everything in one direction.
I can feel it trying
to funnel my heat away.
if I pay the roots of the heather
too close attention, they will invite me
to whiten my bones among them.

the sheep know where they are,
browsing in their dirty wool-clouds,
gray as the weather.
the black slots of their pupils take me in.
it is like being mailed into space,
a thin, silly message.
they stand about in grandmotherly disguise,
all wig curls and yellow teeth
and hard, marbly baas.

the sky leans on me, me, the one upright
among all horizontals.
the grass is beating its head distractedly.
it is too delicate
for a life in such company;
darkness terrifies it.

- sylvia plath, wuthering heights