Crow's Nerve Fails
Crow, feeling his brain slip, Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder. Who murdered all these? These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood Till he is visibly black? How can he fly from his feathers? And why have they homed on him? Is he the archive of their accusations? Or their ghostly purpose, their pining vengeance? Or their unforgiven prisoner? He cannot be forgiven. His prison is the earth. Clothed in his conviction, Trying to remember his crimes Heavily he flies.
Crow's Nerve Fails - meaning Summary
Guilt Without a Known Crime
The poem presents Crow as overwhelmed by a sense of inherited or unexplained guilt. His black feathers seem to him like evidence of countless murders, making his own body a prison and an accusation. Unable to identify his crimes or escape the world that confines him, Crow becomes a figure for human consciousness burdened by violence, memory, and the fear that forgiveness is impossible.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.