Counter-Currents
77 words
The valley sinks into the mist;
the yellow ring of the horizon
eclipses the cornea of the sun;
the ridge blooms purple on my wrist,
fading, inimical and black.
The earth exhales into the dusk,
frost forming in the shaded husk
of afterglows. My wine and sack
my only friends, I hear the call
of hovering owls, as stars drift down.
A hawk upon a bough, no town
high or below, I wait for Fall.
17 April 2017
6 comments
The owls are not what they seem?
The owl symbolizes death in the minstrelsy of the Scottish border. Cf. there was a boy by Wordsworth https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45558
The Owls calling to the boy presage his death. Cf also Proud Maisie by Scott.
The owl represents simple death, not evil death as with the raven, which also blends in worldly wisdom as in odin’s ravens Freke and gere. There is likely some ancient connection betwixt the animal symbolism of the Scottish border ballads and that of Norse mythology
Who’s that engraving by, durer?
German woodcut attributed to Hans Wechtlin, 1500-1525.
Also, the echo from the hills when the owls are silent in the Wordsworth poem suggest an afterlife. The absence of this parallel in yankovich’s poem suggests an atheistic worldview
“Also, the echo from the hills when the owls are silent in the Wordsworth poem suggest an afterlife. The absence of this parallel in yankovich’s poem suggests an atheistic worldview.”–Yapius
“The call of hovering owls” suggest that the Pantocrator exists, the most high, and not some horse-faced demiurge, silent in the trees like a peeping tom.
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