You're doing very well with the images, Sierra. 

"Old cave of calcium  
Icicles, old echoer."

To me, the calcium would be bone. Perhaps the pelvis containing the womb as it is more of a cave structure. "Calcium icicles" could equally apply to ribs, though the ribs may possibly be represented by  

"Waxy stalactites  
Drip and thicken,"

It is also noteworthy that the above is how dipped candles are made.

"The blood blooms clean  
In you, ruby.  
The pain  
You wake to is not yours."

A reference to the same blood coursing through both bodies, transferring her own pain.
 
"Love, love,  
I have hung our cave with roses,  
With soft rugs -  
The last of Victoriana."

To me, this is a reference to the comfort of the womb and the blood vessels of the placenta which supplies nutrients and oxygen to the fetus through the blood. 

"Let the mercuric  
Atoms that cripple drip  
Into the terrible well,"

This is probably a reference to the fetal waste being returned to the mother's blood system via the placenta.

There may well be even deeper references involved though the above are expressive in themselves.
 
 

I too like the notion of the echo and emptiness.  I hadn't thought of that.

Loaves and fishes had sprung to mind but I dismissed it.  It is only now you mention it Sierra that I see the relevance of the multiplying

I accidentaly had knowledge about what blue light meant because of a tragic incident detailed in newspapers about miners who became trapped  in a collapsed portion of a mine. 
At least I had one up there.  I can't however connect "old cave of calcium" to a womb or anything to do with bearing children. 

I may or may not change my first impressions of this--please excuse my slowness, I was never any good at this in school.  I was embarrassed and ashamed of my thoughts because everyone else seemed to know what they were talking about but me!  Nothing much has changed since then, lol.  But I wantto be a part of the action too   Here goes.

Back to the title again--but it just amazes me.  I was 
thinking Christmas (which really isn't way off in the 
larger scheme of things...what a gift this child brings), then the Nursery Rhyme came to mind (Jack Jumped Over the Candlestick) so I assumed this
has something to do with a child.



I am miner.  The light burns blue.
Waxy stalctites
Drip and thicken, tears

The earthen womb

Exudes from its dead boredom.
Black bat airs



It's apparent from these first few lines
that there is an aura of dark emptiness--coming from the earth--things happen in life to create deep
and surrounding sorrows of mind and body.  Things
we see, things that are done to us, things we do to 
ourselves. Surrounds her(N). Emptiness, barreness.
I see the black bat airs to be frightening,
a scary sort of thing .
Must be a very scary place she is,  within.



Wrap me, raggy shawls,
Cold homicides.
They weld to me like plums.



The  place is obviously poverty stricken, nothing there to
find to keep warm.  We don't give our children raggy shawls to wear, but someone or something has given them to her.  I think cold means callous here.  I'm not sure I like the image of the plums, but they are purple like bruises--but do you find them in a mine? (I guess this one).   



Old cave of calcium
Icicles, old echoer.
Even the newts are white,



I don't really get this part, except it alludes to
the emptiness, or depths or heights
of something where you would find/hear an echo.
What/who is the old echoer--would that mean "someone who creates an echo"?  Like a bible,
for instance?  It's yelling prophesies, about how we
should live our lives, and our mimicking of them?  A pretentious holiness (white newts)



Those holy Joes.
And the fish, the fish--
Christ!  They are panes of ice,



I see the multiplying of the loaves--a second time I see
the bible.  I don't really sense anger, but more of sarcasm here. I think the N is talking about hypocrits!



A vice of knives,
A piranha 
Religion, drinking


Its first Communion out of my live toes.
The candle
Gulps and recovers its small altitude.

The sarcasm continues--I like the sort of dual play
here in L1--you can read it two ways!  I wonder
why she chose toes?  Interesting, ironic, too, that anything considered 'holy' she considers vice!

I think nas has influenced my thoughts about the candle--but I think I agree about the fragile state of this candle.  I wonder if the baby lives--her son lives?



Its yellows hearten.
O love, how did you get here?
O embryo


I love this stanza.  ITs echo is far-reaching.  The love
between mother and child--there is no greater love than
that love.  That's what I see here.  How happy this must
make the N that the "yellows hearten".



Remembering, even in sleep,
Your crossed position
The blood blooms clean


It's an interesting take ( star-crossed lovers)--but I hope that isn't true.  I didn't see it that way, but yet again, I'm seeing an innocent suffering, like Jesus on the cross (crossed position). 



In you, ruby.
The pain
You wake to is not yours.


The baby must bear any inclement conditions
because it depends on the womb for its own life.    



Love, love,
I have hung our cave with roses.
With soft rugs--


Her love for him is a tender love (warmth, no raggy shawls)
not cold, fake like the world has to offer, has offered
her.



The last of Victoriana.
Let the stars
Plummet to their dark address,



Nothing but the finest for this child...nothing but the finest
IS this child.  The love between them is so solid that
the end of the world could not crumble the bond.


Let the mercuric
Atoms that cripple drip
Into the terrible well,


I'm hearing this awful echoing again--the drip,
drip, drip of a poison that causes this maming or death
of a whole or facet of a whole?   



You are the one
Solid the spaces lean on, envious.
You are the baby in the barn.


Dark, empty places need the light of love, if
only to lean on.  The world needs this kind of mother's love,
the world needs a child's love....the forebearing kind....the kind that is envied by those who can't for some reason or another possess it. 
I don't know.  This is as far as I got today.

Quote:


Hey nas,

Thanks for joining in. Your first read is rather clear for someone not familiar with Plath. Well done, ma'am.

As far as the above quote, same thing.

Hope you stick around for this poem's finish,
~tim

Firstly, I haven't yet read any of the replies to this thread as I like to approach poems initially with a fresh mind and form my own impressions.
I also know nothing about Sylvia Plath other than she was married to Ted Hughes and haven't read any of her work, so this is my initiation.

I'm not sure I really understand it and when I have typed this, I shall go back and read what has already been said.

The images I get from this poem are that it is about conception, pregnancy, miscarriage or perhaps health problems in the womb, fibroids or cancer.

Quote:


This paints quite a bleak picture.  Interesting move from the black of the bats - death, decay, to the red of the plums  - blood red  and the white of calcium icicles and newts (perhaps the newts means sperm).

Quote:


The candle, to me is a flicker of life and hope, there seems an element of surprise the embryo is there.

Could "the blood blooms clean" be the shedding of the lining of the uterus after the miscarriage.   

Crossed positions makes me think of "star-crossed lovers" who are not meant to be.

Does she blame herself for her inability to stay pregnant?

I have probably got this completely wrong but on first read, those are the thoughts that came to me. 

I shall now read the comments.

Yvonne, yes to some extent you would need a little background to catch-up, imo. The poem is not only dealing with her attitude towards her son but other personal factors that reflect her state of mind - a significant part of the poem.

I'm sure, though, that you can appreciate some of the basics relating to childbearing - "old cave of calcium icicles", "hung our cave with roses, with soft rugs" - and perhaps get a sense of what feelings are being expressed. Other than that, hopefully the personal background will be mentioned as ideas move along since they are part and parcel of the understanding, and the disagreements, on meaning.

         Terence

S8 could also mean unplanned, but with the religious references ...