
Da Vinci Landscape with Crows
© 2007 Lori GoldbergI saw this painting at the Eastside Culture
Crawl in Vancouver a few weeks ago. There are a lot of crows where I
currently live and I've been trying to look at them differently over
the past few months. Less Poe and Milton. Something else. I don't know what yet. I like how the artist saw crows not as the traditional tricksters but as helpers.
Goldberg has a strong connection to crows. She feels they have helped
her both emotionally and technically.
“When my daughter died twelve years ago at 10 months old, I would
walk the streets in an altered state, grieving a deep loss and the crows
would just be there landing in front of me or dropping stuff at me or
swooping down at me.
It was like they knew and they were trying to bring me back from the
depths of my pain and make me become more present. It worked.”
source: Grab News: Art Unfolding: featuring Painter Lori Goldberg by Rod Drown
While looking at this painting I had pieces of this poem running in my head. The crows, the painting, and Clifton's words remind me that there are those who may be experiencing the kind of extra heaviness that these long dark days of winter can bring. I hope part of that heaviness could be winged and beautiful.
sorrowsby Lucille Clifton
who would believe them winged
who would believe they could be
beautiful who would believe
they could fall so in love with mortals
that they would attach themselves
as scars attach and ride the skin
sometimes we hear them in our dreams
rattling their skulls clicking their bony fingers
envying our crackling hair
our spice filled flesh
they have heard me beseeching
as I whispered into my own
cupped hands enough not me again
enough but who can distinguish
one human voice
amid such choruses of desire