Crow followed Ulysses till he turned
As a worm, which Crow ate.

Grappling with Hercules’ two puff-adders
He strangled in error Dejanira.

The gold melted out of Hercules’ ashes
Is an electrode in Crow’s brain.

Drinking Beowulf’s blood, and wrapped in his hide,
Crow communes with poltergeists out of old ponds.

His wings are the stiff back of his only book,
Himself the only page — of solid ink.

So he gazes into the quag of the past
Like a gypsy into the crystal of the future,

Like a leopard into a fat land.

~ Crowego, from Ted Hughes’ Crow

Crow thought of a palace –
Its lintel crashed on him, his bones were found.

Crow thought of a fast car –
It plucked his spine out, and left him empty and armless.

Crow thought of the wind’s freedom –
And his eyes evaporated, the wind whistled over the Turkish Saddle.

Crow thought of a wage –
And it choked him, it was cut unspoiled from his dead stomach.

Crow thought of the soft and warm that is long remembered –
It blindfolded him with silk, it gangplanked him into a volcano.

Crow thought of intelligence –
It turned the key against him and he tore at its fruitless bars.

Crow thought of nature’s stupor –
And an oak tree grew out of his ear.

A row of his black children sat in the top.
They flew off.

Crow
Never again moved.

~ Magical Dangers, from Ted Hughes’ Crow

Yes, yes. I know the Ninjas are in need of attention, dear readers — all good things to those who wait!

Lately I’ve been absorbed in reading a translation of Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji. Researching various intricacies of the text lead me to a lovely series of prints called One Hundred Aspects of the Moon (1885-1892) by the Japanese artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

The print above illustrates the Ghost of Yugao [one of Genji's conquests on a 'dark and stormy night' in the early chapters of the novel]. Yugao means ‘moonflower’ in Japanese.

A complete listing of the One Hundred Aspects of the Moon can be found here. From the site:

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) is a pupil of Kuniyoshi’s. The first designs of his popular Tsuki hyakushi (A Hundred Views of the Moon) are published in 1885. The subjects are taken from Indian and Chinese legends, famous musicians and poets, and heroes of classic novels and plays.

I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs.

~ Joseph Addison [1672-1719]

And of course, a little something from Shakespeare:

So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.

~ From A Midsummer’s Night Dream, [III. ii. 208]

Grape-heavy woods ripen darkening
The sweetness.

Tight with golden light
The hills have been gathered.

Granite weights of sun.
Tread of burning days.

Unending river
Swells from the press
To gladden men.

~ Ted Hughes, from River (1983).

The crows mantain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. Doubtless that is so, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for the heavens signify simply: the impossibility of crows.

~ Kafka

Today, I will draw things.

A minor musing of mine in Photoshop from this morning. Plus two poems from Ted Hughes to fuel the imagination. Enjoy.

Crow’s Theology

Crow realised God loved him –
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.

And he realised that God spoke Crow –
Just existing was His revelation.

But what
Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?

And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?

Crow realised there were two Gods –

One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons.

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Crow’s Fall

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 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 what charred black.

‘Up there, ‘ he managed,
‘Where white is black and black is white, I won.’

Here’s a sketch of mine from this morning. It didn’t scan well, but I don’t particularly care, and it’s unlikely that I’ll finish it. Although I’m considering doing a mindless sort of meditation on birds like this every morning. Here’s some owl related material for you to enjoy, since I appear to be somewhat at a loss for words today:

Song — The Owl

I.

When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

II.

When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.

~ Tennyson

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The Owl and the Grasshopper

An Owl who was sitting in a hollow tree, dozing away a summer’s afternoon, was very much disturbed by a rogue of a Grasshopper singing in the grass beneath. Instead of keeping quiet, or moving away at the request of the Owl, the Grasshopper sang all the more, and called her an old blinker that only came out at night when honest people were in bed.

The Owl waited in silence for a time, and then artfully addressed the Grasshopper as follows: “Well, my dear, if one can not be allowed to sleep, it is something to be kept awake by such a pleasant voice. And now that I think of it, I have a bottle of delicious nectar. If you will come up, you shall have a drop.” The silly Grasshopper, came hopping up to the owl, who at once caught and killed him, and finished her nap in comfort.

~ Aesop

“Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryon atoms.” – Milton

Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe‘s weed and Hermes’ feather;
Come to-day, and come to-morrow,
I do love you both together!
I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;
And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;
Fair and foul I love together.
Meadows sweet where flames are under,
And a giggle at a wonder;
Visage sage at pantomine;
Funeral, and steeple-chime;
Infant playing with a skull;
Morning fair, and shipwreck’d hull;
Nightshade with the woodbine kissing;
Serpents in red roses hissing;
Cleopatra regal-dress’d
With the aspic at her breast;
Dancing music, music sad,
Both together, sane and mad;
Muses bright and muses pale;
Sombre Saturn, Momus hale; –
Laugh and sigh, and laugh again;
Oh the sweetness of the pain!
Muses bright, and muses pale,
Bare your faces of the veil;
Let me see; and let me write
Of the day, and of the night –
Both together: – let me slake
All my thirst for sweet heart-ache!
Let my bower be of yew,
Interwreath’d with myrtles new;
Pines and lime-trees full in bloom,
And my couch a low grass-tomb.

~ Keats, Posthumous and fugitive Poems

Kareeda ni
Karasu no tomarikeri
Aki no kure

On the dead limb
squats a crow –
autumn night.

~ A haiku from Matsuo Basho (1664-1694).

Image: Crows, 1766; pair of six-fold screens; ink and gold on paper by Maruyama Okyo (like Basho, also from the Edo period).