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CROW'S ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLE
Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998)
As I said in the little essay that accompanied the first poem by Ted Hughes that appeared in these pages, I did not care for the "Crow" poems when I first began reading Hughes's poetry. But, as I also noted, I like them very much now that I have become more familiar with them. They do, in fact, "take some getting used to," as the saying goes. But this task is, as another saying goes, "well worth the effort."
The Crow poems are difficult to characterize. Crow is, first and foremost, a literary vehicle for use by Hughes to comment on God and mankind. An article on the Crow poems that I found at www.teachit.co.uk says the following. "He [Crow] interferes in God's activities, sometimes trying to learn or help, sometimes in mischief, sometimes in open rebellion." It further states that he has "anthropomorphic qualities, combined with the shabby, furtive, scavenging characteristics of a common crow, and also supernatural powers."
What this article didn't say, but which seems true to me at least is that the best way to understand Crow is to read the poems. If you are familiar with the Crow poems, I hope you enjoy rereading this one. If you are not, I hope you appreciate this one enough to read some others. The Crow poems are quite an experience. In this one, Crow takes a bleak view of war. Please enjoy.
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Crow's Account Of The Battle
There was this terrific battle.
The noise was as much
As the limits of possible noise could take.
There were screams higher groans deeper
Than any ear could hold.
Many eardrums burst and some walls
Collapsed to escape the noise.
Everything struggled on its way
Through this tearing deafness
As through a torrent in a dark cave.
The cartridges were banging off, as planned,
The fingers were keeping things going
According to excitement and orders.
The unhurt eyes were full of deadliness.
The bullets pursued their courses
Through clods of stone, earth, and skin,
Through intestines, pocket-books, brains, hair, teeth
According to Universal laws.
And mouths cried "Mamma"
From sudden traps of calculus,
Theorems wrenched men in two,
Shock-severed eyes watched blood
Squandering as from a drain-pipe
Into the blanks between the stars.
Faces slammed down into clay
As for the making of a life-mask
Knew that even on the sun's surface
They could not be learning more or more to the point.
Reality was giving it's lesson,
Its mishmash of scripture and physics,
With here, brains in hands, for example,
And there, legs in a treetop.
There was no escape except into death.
And still it went on--it outlasted
Many prayers, many a proved watch,
Many bodies in excellent trim,
Till the explosives ran out
And sheer weariness supervened
And what was left looked round at what was left.
Then everybody wept,
Or sat, too exhausted to weep,
Or lay, too hurt to weep.
And when the smoke cleared it became clear
This has happened too often before
And was going to happen too often in the future
And happened too easily
Bones were too like lath and twigs
Blood was too like water
Cries were too like silence
The most terrible grimaces too like footprints in mud
And shooting somebody through the midriff
Was too like striking a match
Too like potting a snooker ball
Too like tearing up a bill
Blasting the whole world to bits
Was too like slamming a door
Too like dropping in a chair
Exhausted with rage
Too like being blown up yourself
Which happened too easily
With too like no consequences.
So the survivors stayed.
And the earth and the sky stayed.
Everything took the blame.
Not a leaf flinched, nobody smiled.
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