Thursday, May 26, 2005
Words can ‘domesticate a fear’
A rather morbid but vivid poem from Richard Wilbur, quoted in a Christian Century review of his new compilation (which is excellent):
A Barred Owl
Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,
Can also thus domesticate a fear,
And send a small child back to sleep at night
Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight
Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw
Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.
The Century comments:
The paradox is that these words leave us dreaming precisely of that small thing being eaten raw. Do such words do more to domesticate our fears or to make them clear*and which task is the more necessary? At his best, Wilbur leads us into deep reflection on such questions and on the “difficult balance” they require.