Our Daily Bird 44: Sometimes I hear them...

Da Vinci Landscape with Crows
© 2007 Lori Goldberg

I saw this painting at the Eastside Culture Crawl in Vancouver last year. There are a lot of crows where I currently live and I've been trying to look at them differently over the past few months. Less Poe and Milton. Something else. I don't know what yet.  I like how the artist saw crows not as the traditional tricksters but as helpers.

Goldberg has a strong connection to crows. She feels they have helped
her both emotionally and technically.

“When my daughter died twelve years ago at 10 months old, I would
walk the streets in an altered state, grieving a deep loss and the crows
would just be there landing in front of me or dropping stuff at me or
swooping down at me.

It was like they knew and they were trying to bring me back from the
depths of my pain and make me become more present. It worked.”

source: Grab News: Art Unfolding: featuring Painter Lori Goldberg by Rod Drown

While looking at this painting I had pieces of this poem running in my head. The crows, the painting, and Clifton's words remind me that there are those who may be experiencing the kind of extra heaviness that these long dark days of winter can bring. I hope part of that heaviness could be winged and beautiful.

sorrows
by Lucille Clifton

who would believe them winged

who would believe they could be

beautiful         who would believe

they could fall so in love with mortals

that they would attach themselves

as scars attach and ride the skin

sometimes we hear them in our dreams

rattling their skulls         clicking their bony fingers

envying our crackling hair

our spice filled flesh

they have heard me beseeching

as I whispered into my own

cupped hands       enough not me again

enough       but who can distinguish

one human voice

amid such choruses of   desire



Comments

[Elaine]

Thank you for this. I'll be returning to the painting, the poem and your words on dark, heavy days.