Theodore Roethke: "Night Crow"
Some of you know that I'm writing a paper on Milton and MacLeish concerning bird imagery in Genesis and in religious poetry. As I was reflecting on this sort of imagery, I suddenly recalled a poem by that oldtimer, Theodore Roethke:
Night Crow
When I saw that clumsy crowSomething mythic in there . . .
Flap from a wasted tree,
A shape in the mind rose up:
Over the gulfs of dream
Flew a tremendous bird
Further and further away
Into a moonless black,
Deep in the brain, far back.
Labels: Music
posted by Horace Jeffery Hodges @ 8:39 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I like the way he mentions "brain." Arguably, he anticipates the contemporary investigations of neuroscience and literature. Are there other bird-brain mentions in Roethke's oeuvre?
I like the brain, too. That image works far better than I would have imagined.
Also, I know nothing more of bird-brained images.
Jeffery Hodges
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