When was the last time you walked in a forest or woodlands and sighted a wild mammal or a raptor? What was your immediate reaction? Have you ever come upon such a creature that was dead? This poem is about the latter. I don’t know which is more moving: seeing a wild living being or experiencing up close the wild thing dead. Perhaps both, different in their own ways, but equally stunning. This poem is about the death of a raptor. At the end of the poem, background and explorations, I have included another poem by James Dickey. Like so many of the world’s precious creatures near extinction, Dickey writes to what he supposes is the last wolverine – the last of its kind anywhere. When she dies out, her ancient lineage ends. We hear about animal extinctions regularly, but how many of us give a hoot? The nation of the raptor in the poem below is not on the brink of extinction, but when long, how long . . .?
Remembering Flight #3
. . . Hold infinity in the curve of my wing
and eternity in timeless flight
I am the Owl who calls upon the night
speaks the unbelievers’ fright
Adapted from “Auguries of Innocence”
William Blake
Lord, let me die, but not die
out.
“For the Last Wolverine”
James Dickey
Once they heard my voice calling their names
They feared the sound, though every one ends the same
I lie shaded by memorial red pines
pristine perfection fallen to snow
I’ve preened my feathers unruffled flow
Yellow eyes closed in semblance of sleep
one more sound lost from the Forest keep
Fifty million years converges evolution
eons yield raptors emergent plumage
Falling with the snow from frigid sky
not for prey this time, but to die
Remembering my first – my fledging flight
First from the nest’s embrace, tumbling out
I remember air lifting my wings
falling off the edge of things
with no chart and flying blind
falling, falling into shudders
falling, falling, then tail’s firm rudder
extending wingtips to gain height
Remembering taloned feet clenched like fists
under wings’ leading-edge finesse
just this
just this
Falling falling into flight
with a suchness blowing from the night
propelled by instinct – dissecting air
I learned the arts of predator
I could hear a skittering mole
under eighteen inches of new snow
Now lying here in the white, light undone
I hear them coming on ten feet as one
Will I be perfected on this side?
Will feathers turn gold now that I’ve died
Will I remember my night-long song
or will my voice go all silent – gone?
Will I turn my head two-seven round
or will that, too, be taken to the ground?
On my back, remembering branch and sky
wind riffling whispers what it was to fly
wings against the moon – no thought to die
Will you remember the silent dead?
poised, noiseless wings arching o’er your head
as you murmur of flight in your dreams
imagining yourself not who you seem
I’m the raptor hunting your witching ways
one who pursues minds sliding into days
turning black blades in twin yellow eyes
the engine that drives my raptor’s flight
to hunt by sun and hunt by night
Talons rigid and cuttingly spread
Could you not remember such true dread?
your flesh to me, my wings for you
I will call out your name, piercing through
The red pine boughs dip and hold me up
jagged jack pine masts reveal the passage rough
saying to me, “This is enough. Enough.”
If I’m forgotten, what less of you?
or we can merge and head where I once flew
Background
One sunny, winter afternoon, my German Shepherd, Willa, and my Sheltie, Sancho, and I were out walking in Beltrami Island State Forest where we live. The trail we were on is lined with gigantic red pines. Willa trotted ahead, her paws fluffing up little puffs of dry snow. Suddenly, she veered off the path and dove into the red pine growth. I saw she was snuffling and sniffing something in the deep snow under the pines. As I caught up, she gently pawed at the fluffy white drift. As a precaution, I told her to “leave it,” and obedient as she is, she did so. I followed her path into the deeper snow, and at the end of her trail, I came upon a dead owl – a Great Horned Owl. The owl could have been sleeping if upright on a branch. Everything about this owl was perfect – not a mark of assault or tragedy to be seen. A few days later, I asked a friend in the DNR what may have been the cause of death. “Old age, internal injuries. Not likely a vehicle impact based on the location, and pesticides have been a problem, but in the middle of winter, also unlikely. Of course, it could have been shot. That’s seriously illegal, but it happens, and out in the Forest, it’s near impossible to apprehend the killer.” The DNR agent reminded me that possession of any feathers or other parts of wild birds, in whole, or partial, is illegal. That means road kill, too.
This wasn’t the first or the last time I had the privilege of spending a few moments with a wild being, but due to this one’s perfection of form, I inhaled with delight and horror simultaneously. I hovered between amazement at the beautiful figure and the grave silence that called for no less than a memorial. The owl would not go to waste. Ravens and other creatures would make a feast, I thought. But I didn’t really know, just as I had not idea what the meaning of this encounter could be. In the end, I concluded that there really was no meaning or purpose; rather, this death was simply a part of the causes and conditions of living and dying – the great matters.
Exploration 1: While walking, in particular in the Forest or woodlands, have you ever come across a dead, wild creature? What emotions did the encounter bring up? What, if anything, did you do with the animal?
Exploration 2: Most Native American tribes believe that the owl’s call is an omen of death. Do you share this belief? Is it possible that if you don’t, you are incorrect?
Exploration 3: What are thoughts on what the rights of wild creatures should be?
Note: An excellent book for your reference is I Heard the Owl Call My Name. It is set in a Native village where the bond between people and wild things is strong.
For the Last Wolverine
They will soon be down
To one, but he still will be
For a little while still will be stopping
The flakes in the air with a look,
Surrounding himself with the silence
Of whitening snarls. Let him eat
The last red meal of the condemned
To extinction, tearing the guts
From an elk. Yet that is not enough
For me. I would have him eat
The heart, and from it, have an idea
Stream into his gnarling head
That he no longer has a thing
To lose, and so can walk
Out into the open, in the full
Pale of the sub-Arctic sun
Where a single spruce tree is dying
Higher and higher. Let him climb it
With all his meanness and strength.
Lord, we have come to the end
Of this kind of vision of heaven,
As the sky breaks open
Its fans around him and shimmers
And into its northern gates he rises
Snarling complete in the joy of a weasel
With an elk’s horned heart in his stomach
Looking straight into the eternal
Blue, where he hauls his kind. I would have it all
My way: at the top of that tree I place
The New World’s last eagle
Hunched in mangy feathers giving
Up on the theory of flight.
Dear God of the wildness of poetry, let them mate
To the death in the rotten branches,
Let the tree sway and burst into flame
And mingle them, crackling with feathers,
In crownfire. Let something come
Of it something gigantic legendary
Rise beyond reason over hills
Of ice screaming that it cannot die,
That it has come back, this time
On wings, and will spare no earthly thing:
That it will hover, made purely of northern
Lights, at dusk and fall
On men building roads: will perch
On the moose’s horn like a falcon
Riding into battle into holy war against
Screaming railroad crews: will pull
Whole traplines like fibres from the snow
In the long-jawed night of fur trappers.
But, small, filthy, unwinged,
You will soon be crouching
Alone, with maybe some dim racial notion
Of being the last, but none of how much
Your unnoticed going will mean:
How much the timid poem needs
The mindless explosion of your rage,
The glutton’s internal fire the elk’s
Heart in the belly, sprouting wings,
The pact of the “blind swallowing
Thing,” with himself, to eat
The world, and not to be driven off it
Until it is gone, even if it takes
Forever. I take you as you are
And make of you what I will,
Skunk-bear, carcajou, bloodthirsty
Non-survivor.
Lord, let me die but not die
Out.
Comments
Post a Comment