The Rabbit Catcher

I drew this rabbit one day and it quickly found a home in Scotland.

I often think of the cruelty that exists in the world simultaneously as I think of the beauty that I am creating. By drawing the creature, I'm creating a memory of it- so I don't forget it's existence.

Sylvia Plath's poem touches on these thoughts but ofcourse has a personal tragic undertone that reflected her volcanic relationship at the time. I thought I'd share this poem today.

The Rabbit Catcher by Sylvia Plath

It was a place of force -

The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair

Tearing off my voice, and the sea

Blinding me with its lights, the lives of the dead

Unreeling in it, spreading like oil.

I tasted the malignity of the gorse,

It's black spikes,

The extreme unction of its yellow candle-flowers.

They had an effiency, a greaty beauty,

And were extravagant, like torture.

There was only one place to get to.

Simmering, perfumed,

The paths narrowed into the hollow.

And the snare almost effaced themselves -

Zeros, shutting on nothing,

Set close, like birth pangs.

The absense of shrieks

Made a hole in the hot day, a vacancy.

The glassy light was a clear wall,

The thickets quiet.

I felt a still busyness, an intent.

I felt hands round a tea mug, dull, blunt,

Ringing the white china.

How they awaited him, those little deaths!

They waited like sweethearts. They excited him.

And we, too had a relationship-

Tight wires between us,

Oegs too depp to uproot, and a mind like a ring

Sliding shut on some quick thing,

The constriction killing me also.

Posted June 24, 2016 13:49

Tweet