Monday, January 13, 2014

21 crows


I understand Wallace Stevens’ need to write thirteen ways. A multiplication, an exponential transformation occurs when I see these shining birds on roads of snow.


They are black jack dealt on a white table,
fortune and misfortune as one.

A constellation of flying stars,
of beaks and wings on a white sky
in the world’s negative.

Hunger falling in waves
like wind from broken trees.

They are 21 nights of insomnia —
a new habit of wakefulness.

Glyphs of a new language,
shining blue.

A black coat
lifting when I pass
floating back down
to clothe its dying friend.

They are a bridge from
sky to tree

tree to possum

possum to me.

They are strangers
or lovers
depending on the light.

They are infinity
mile by mile



Really, this could go on and on. I wonder what you see in 21 crows?





23 comments:

  1. this is my initial response which you receive just now in e-mail but which i think is worth restating, "oh, within minutes (of our exchange about the philosophical precepts needed for good living and good dying) i read your poem and i weep in a kind of hallelujah. but why? what have you said? have you spoken? or have you only seen? but no. more than seen. pointed. and sang too.)))))))))))"

    what do i see? the erasure of myself twined with my being.

    and you. i see you.

    xo
    erin

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    1. Erin, just a few hours ago my feet were weighted with cement. And then you and I shared words, poems, images, articles, and we have been revived. This is our meaning, this is all. We are the ones who recycle Life and Hope, just as nature does, even while we are dying.

      So so grateful.

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    2. and ... "the erasure of myself twined with my being" — this short line, that contains all. It socked me when I first read it, and then I didn't respond, being absorbed in our connection. Yes it is a shock, and yet in a life's work (yours), it is evident and revelatory.

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  2. I really love this expansive look at "21 crows—" such strong, evocative, and very different images! The line that most resonates with me is "They are strangers/ or lovers/ depending on the light." I keep thinking of how this is true sometimes of myself and certain disappointments, for example. :)

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    1. Jade, it has been several days since I felt the ecstatic moments that began this poem. You know, it was through living, through friendship, through expressions of others that words could come. It could go on and on like this through us, you, me, all of us, if we allow it. I am happy that you feel what you do from this. <3

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  3. My "ohhhhh!" echoes Erin's…how have you done this? That constellation--crows as positives on nature's negative--how that subverts what we think of, generally, when we think of crows. "Strangers or lovers depending on the light". Yes. A bridge--life to death, back again. But what moved me most (cannot explain this): is the image of the coat, falling softly to cover a dying friend. The depth of that lingers, and will linger. Thank you.

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    1. Dear DS, I am glad the image of the coat touches you like that, and even that you can't explain it. This was such a moving few moments for me, and I had no idea how to put it into words. Then something shifted yesterday (maybe me).

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    2. But it is in those shifts that "things"--the ineffable-- happen (erin's "erasure of myself twined with my being')…and they become poems. The crows caused the shift;the crows became, are, the poem. But only because they shifted within you first…or you within them. Or both.

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  4. This is fabulous, Ruth — so imaginative and inventive. It took my breath away.

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    1. That is wonderful, Robert, thank you so much.

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  5. Whatever it is, it would be nowhere near as beautifully described as you have done here. "They are black jack dealt on a white table, fortune and misfortune as one."
    Wow, Ruth...........wow

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  6. What do I see in your 21 crows? Off the top of my head: the unpredictable movements of black across the landscape; the persistence of living things to survive in all circumstances; the natural compassion that all living things instinctively feel for one another, even when culturally repressed; the undeniable connections among all living things — sky, blackbirds, trees, possums, each of us; the truth that perception always reflects the filter, rather than the reality; the eternal that is found in every living cell, even that obscure cell that is kicking a fleck of blue onto the tail of a blackbird.

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    1. George, what an insightful reading of this poem, which I believe has come from close personal experience of yours, as you've observed and reflected upon this earth through the span of your life. Thank you for this and how you show another way we are all connected, another way of the 21 crows.

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  7. Mocking me as I shivered my way to the car on the coldest day of the year, by playing in that cold air.

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    1. Oh Wayne! I wondered, too, how they could be so free in the cold, wondered how it feels to them. Thank you.

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  8. And if they were 22, would they be more or less? Don't ask me why, Ruth, but I suddenly went into mathematician mode, wanting to explore the numerology of it, as though there is significance there.... I wonder!

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    1. Hmm, could be. Don't know why the number 21 came, because I certainly didn't have time to count each cluster of crows as I passed. There were many, many ... countless. :)

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    2. You've just reminded me of a word the Campa Pajonal indians used when I worked with them eons ago, Ruth, in Peru. I played badminton with one of the guys (handmade birdie batted back-n-forth with ours hands) and was counting in Spanish to get him to count in his own mother tongue. But after 4, he would always say "o-SHAY-i-kee" which means many. It still astounds me to this day whenever I think of it. Why wouldn't you have numbers after FOUR??? :)

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  9. Such a carefully carved iteration, poet to world singing "let me count the ways I love thee." My faves:

    They are 21 nights of insomnia —
    a new habit of wakefulness.


    and

    They are strangers
    or lovers
    depending on the light.


    Truly exquisite, Ruth.

    and



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    1. Thanks very much, Brendan. You got it right: poet to world singing "let me count the ways I love thee."

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  10. "A constellation of flying stars." This is why I love how you write.

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  11. You know Ruth, I've been a birding convert for a little over a year now. I've taken what I think are fantastic photos of them, emphasize on the 'I think'. If you can paint crows so beautifully with words, I can expect even more mesmerizing poetry for other ones. I await more. Thanks for this.

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All responses are welcome.