Morning Song
music by John Mitchell
words by Sylvia Plath
Wendy Lashbrook, soprano


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Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry 
Took its place among the elements. 

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival.  New statue
In a drafty museum, your nakedness 
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother 
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow 
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath 
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown. 
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square 

Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try 
Your handful of notes; 
The clear vowels rise like balloons.