I'm not sure if this is an ekphrastic poem or not. I also don't know if this poem is a response to the life and style of "Charles Burchfield." But from what I read on the wiki, and just looking through some of his artwork, there's a sense of surrealness in his paintings, but there's always the ambiance of nature sketched one line at a time.
The start of this poem feels expository to set-up the persona. The lines are vivid with imagery of darkness or wanting to retreat into the dark: "I soared over darkened / fields" and
As the sun rose
over the hill
I plunged into the dusky woods
to avoid the blinding
light and become lodged
between two young
white pines.
The speaker is hyper sensitive to the "blinding light" and hides away between pines. And during this time of hiding, the owl and the pines start to become one as the lines continue the owl becomes more tree like as "my blood to sap / my body to wood."
To hide from one light, but then to be struck down by another type of light:
Then a thunderous
splintering and buzzing
as a jagged disk
cut through me
I hate this light
There's a reoccurring idea of light being a negative -- the speaker avoids it, and then becomes destroyed by it.
Comments
Post a Comment