Poet philosopher Robert Wrigley published a book of poetry titled "Box." Here I quote from the "About Author" page. "A University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Idaho, he lives in the woods near Moscow, Idaho, with his wife, the writer Kim Barnes."
The collection is moving, playful, heartfelt, bright-eyed, lush, alluring, and lavish in high relief. It is hard to choose which poem to write about "Blessed Are" caught my attention. Its focus on the life cycle, or the death cycle of "a fallen deer," places ravens at the beginning and the end with things that eat dead things in the middle, creating a circle.
Here are a couple of lines from the poem.
and the sight through my binoculars puts me eye-to-eye with you and the eye you eat and squabble over,
opening now and then your wings in excitable Corvidae vexations, like a scrum of omnivorous umbrellas. (Wrigley 5)
Ravens (Corvidae) are a mythical sign of death. Wrigley returns at the end, circling towards completion. He invisions one raven perching on the skeletal rib cage of the deer, "returning to reciting, for all the world, your ravenous beatitudes."
and one of you will perch upon a bare rib then, to recite, for all the world, your ravenous beatitudes. (Wrigley 6)
References
- Wrigley, Robert. Box (Penguin Poets) Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 2017
