This poem by Sylvia Plath is for all women who have journeyed beyond the realm of the woman as a wife, mother and bearer of life. Mga neng, mabuhay kayo!

Barren Woman
by Sylvia Plath

Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.

I imagine myself with a great public,
Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.
Insread, the dead injure me attentions, and nothing can happen.
Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.

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