When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white.
He decided it glared much too whitely.
He decided to attack it and defeat it.
He got his strength up flush and in full glitter.
He clawed and fluffed his rage up.
He aimed his beak direct at the sun's centre.
He laughed himself to the centre of himself
And attacked.
At his battle cry trees grew suddenly old,
Shadows flattened.
But the sun brightened—
It brightened, and Crow returned charred black.
He opened his mouth but what came out was charred black.
"Up there," he managed,
"Where white is black and black is white, I won."
---Ted Hughes.
~~~~
Fluttering, zig zagging around the candle, some see this as infidelity on the part of the moth; but for others, this is a true symbol of his faithfulness. What he seeks is not light, but fire; the desire to be burnt to the core, disappear in a flash, be blinded, lost. This is the nature of the moth. This is the nature of the flame.
11 comments:
i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
and fry himself on the wires
why do you fellows
pull this stunt i asked him
because it is the conventional
thing for moths or why
if that had been an uncovered
candle instead of an electric
light bulb you would
now be a small unsightly cinder
have you no sense
plenty of it he answered
but at times we get tired
of using it
we get bored with the routine
and crave beauty
and excitement
fire is beautiful
and we know that if we get
too close it will kill us
but what does that matter
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll
that is what life is for
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to
exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
our attitude toward life
is come easy go easy
we are like human beings
used to be before they became
too civilized to enjoy themselves
and before i could argue him
out of his philosophy
he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter
i do not agree with him
myself i would rather have
half the happiness and twice
the longevity
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
the lesson of the moth, by Don Marquis :-)
Ha!:-) where on earth did you find that? Did you know it before I wrote those lines or did you google it..come on now..CONFESS!
Theyr eminded me of something from Prisoner's of Love:
An old Palestinian woman said to me "to have been dangerous for a thousandth of a second, to have been handsome for a thousandth of a thousandth of a second, to have been that, or happy or something, and then to rest-what more can one want?"
wouldn't you like to know :-P
Ha! Which means...you copied it from google! Tut tut. It's okay, roxana..we all have out bad days.
guess again :-P
okay.
Ha! Which means...you copied it from google! Tut tut. :-)
nope :-P
okay, let me try again (this threatens to be the longest set of comments I've ever had!)
is it:
Ha! Which means...you copied it from google! Tut tut. :-)
oh, cut that out :-) I have never understood why people who talk to a foreigner tend to speak louder, as if this made the words more understandable - or the ones who think that repetition can become truth :-P
ok, here it is: when I wrote the comment, I only thought about you and medusa, the way you described it, and the feeling that I had about you. then when you wrote the moth post, I dimly remembered something about a moth. I didn't know what or where. following an intuition, I went to this blog http://todaythispoem.blogspot.com/
and I found the poem there. I must have somehow spotted it there before and the memory stayed with me, unconciously.
now, that's complicated, but you wouldn't have expected something else with me, would you? :-P
R, on 'repetition can become a truth' have you seen Solaris?
No. I mean yes.
Thanks for the poem anyway. A freaky correspondence with what I wrote-no matter how you came about it
[sorry, sorry..just trying to wind you up a bit :-) ]
salaams,
b.
b, This reminds me of I poem i meant to post today. Where did my day go?? I'll have to post it for you tomorrow.
I love your recent string of posts. Very beautiful, your way of speaking. Writing. And leaving things open ended.
I hope your turban is not on fire anymore. That can be very dangerous. And not to mention, hot.
n
Post a Comment