---

Anne Sexton - Kind Sir: These Woods
Work rating: Low

Kind Sir: This is an old game 
that we played when we were eight and ten. 
Sometimes on The Island, in down Maine, 
in late August, when the cold fog blew in 
off the ocean, the forest between Dingley Dell 
and grandfather`s cottage grew white and strange. 
It was as if every pine tree were a brown pole 
we did not know; as if day had rearranged 
into night and bats flew in sun. It was a trick 
to turn around once and know you were lost; 
knowing the crow`s horn was crying in the dark, 
knowing that supper would never come, that the coast`s 
cry of doom from that far away bell buoy`s bell 
said your nursemaid is gone. O Mademoiselle, 
the rowboat rocked over. Then you were dead. 
Turn around once, eyes tight, the thought in your head. 
Kind Sir: Lost and of your same kind 
I have turned around twice with my eyes sealed 
and the woods were white and my night mind 
saw such strange happenings, untold and unreal. 
And opening my eyes, I am afraid of course 
to look—this inward look that society scorns— 
Still, I search these woods and find nothing worse 
than myself, caught between the grapes and the thorns.
Source
The script ran 0.002 seconds.