A poet of such mystery
with brilliance at her core.
Depression marked her history,
a cumbrous weight she bore.
Her father died when she was eight,
a stage of life had flown.
Her faith would lapse, her life filtrate
the carefree child she'd known.
Her poetry would start to flow
throughout her teenage years.
Ambition too would clearly grow
and outshine all her peers.
But mental ills would blight her path,
torment her dazzling mind.
Her married life fused woes with wrath;
in life she felt confined.
So death would lure her to the brink
of that deep, dark domain;
'twould pay, the flight of fate, she'd think,
than fight the foes of pain.
She'd pen her private thoughts with ease,
confess with wit and steel.
She revelled in an age to seize
the right to flaunt, 'unpeel.'*
Then in that modern muse she saw
a hushed and lifeless view
of coldest, wintry, nuclear war
where nought but silence grew.
And venom t'ward her father fired
an outlet that she versed.
His German roots, she wrote, were mired
in suff'ring that she cursed.
She'd float on many plains, it seems,
merge nature with her past.
In imagistic art, her themes
would resonate and last.
In pregnancy, with conflicts rife,
she struggled hard to glean
this "travelled prawn" with budding life
and jumpy as a bean!
But ever more, dreams shaped her mind -
the ultimate, the "fig."*
Estranged and tortured, in a bind,
escape she sought to rig.
With caution for her children dear,
she crossed that last divide -
no coming back, no gaslit* fear,
she breached the other side.
And, though in life she'd battled long,
she spoke with heart and drive -
a golden lotus midst the throng
with words that richly thrive.
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