Words

- Sylvia Plath (p.379)

This poem fits the idea of a triggering subject leading to the actual subject quite well. It starts with "Axes" then their action of cutting a tree. Quite quickly the poem becomes more abstract, it is no longer about an ax cutting wood, but it begins to consider the actions of the sap that is leaking out of the tree, and its flowing nature and the life of the tree, or more broadly life struggling to continue. The sap and the tree are given lifelike qualities, by relating the leaking sap to tears. The next passage refers to a skull, something that seemingly has no connection to the triggering subject of the ax or the tree. The skull comes from the new triggered subject of life, and the skull represents a lack of life. But the skull becomes over grown and "Eaten by weedy greens." This represents the cyclical nature of life. That point is emphasized with how the poem ends with the image and sound of untiring hoof-beats (which the poet describes with the fittingly large word "indefatigable") set against the seemingly unchanging state of the stars, which the poet defines as what "Governs a life."