I Am Vertical

But I would rather be horizontal. / I am not a tree with my root in the soil / Sucking up minerals 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