But I would rather be horizontal.
I am not a tree with my root in the soil
sucking up mineral and motherly love
so that each March I may gleam into leaf,
nor am I the beauty of a garden bed
attracting my share of Ahs and spectacularly painted,
unknowing I must soon unpetal.
Compared with me, a tree is immortal
and a flower-head not tall, but more startling,
and I want the one's longevity and the other's daring.
Tonight, in the infinitesimal light of the stars,
the trees and flowers have been strewing their cool odors.
I walk among them, but none of them are noticing.
Sometimes I think that when I am sleeping
I must most perfectly resemble them -
Thoughts gone dim.
It is more natural to me, lying down.
Then the sky and I are in open conversation,
and I shall be useful when I lie down finally:
then the trees may touch me for once, and the flowers have time for me.
Sylvia Plath, 28 March 1961
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