Dead Crows and Other Mysteries

(Image: Oil Painting by Kirsti Ann Wakelin)




The other evening I dreamt I found a dead crow caught behind the cushions of my sofa. Disturbing. How did it get there, in my dream, so concrete and visible? And what does it mean?
Carl Jung would have me analyze the significance of this dream as it connects to our collective consciousness. What do crows symbolize in our culture today? Was this a visit from Poe? Has a Haida raven dropped by to keep me on my toes? Or is the recent death of my grandfather somehow "couched" in my internal dialogue? He was a storyteller.

Even more intriguing is what happened when I relayed this dream story to my grade 8's. Picking up a new book of poetry and opening it randomly the first poem I fell upon was Jon Silkin's "Carved", the first two lines:

Two small dogs stood by a dead black bird
And the black bird was very dead.

There is no denying death. The dead are dead. As with Silkin's black bird. As with my grandfather. But read the whole poem carefully [inclusion in this blog under construction] and we begin to wonder if the dead don't take on a new life of their own. I know that the "dead go on being dead and the living/living", but don't the dead somehow become larger than life, animated and personified by our thoughts and memories of them.

Coming to terms with the passing of my grandfather has not been difficult. He was 96 and lived a good long life. He has left me with many stories. I will confess though, that I find myself looking for signs of some continued existence. Some different way of being. Perhaps some last message sent to me beyond what he gave in his living. I'd like to think it will be more than a dead crow lying in my sofa. Perhaps it is Silkin's poem.