Maurya Simon’s “The Ravens”
Through the use of dark and fiery images and diction that suggests both infernal and divine entities, Maurya Simon effectively links the presence of ravens with the presence of an otherworldly presence. She posits the ravens as secret emissaries between God and man, implying that the birds can sense something that humans cannot. In this way, the ravens are capable of experiencing the presence more deeply and more closely than the persona of the poem feels she can. Addressing the presence of God on earth is a weighty topic, and while Simon does not provide any concrete answers regarding God’s existence or relationship to humans, it does reflect a sense of longing and uncertainty by the use of rhetorical question and by ending lines with question marks.
The poem begins on an ominous note, with the animals of the poem’s title curiously absent (“the ravens are gone” in the second line) and identified as being from “the realm of the dead.” Their presence is also identified as being a kind of contagion, the dusks being “cured of their cries.” This is the first of many implications of sinister nature in these birds and their association with the supernatural and divine. The ravens are also given human qualities when the persona describes them as wearing “pitch-blackened suits.” This is also the first of the images of darkness and blackness that characterize the poem.
In the second stanza, after it is stated the ravens “are gone,” the ravens do not appear, and there are no dark or black images. The scene described in the second stanza still contains ominous element, with smoke emerging from chimneys in the form of curled fists, suggesting a kind of forceful resistance to the presence of the ravens. The missing birds are also contrasted with the blue jays that take their place.
The first juxtaposition of divine and earthly elements is found in the third stanza. The use of the word “exodus” suggests a pilgrimage like that taken by the Israelites in the Old Testament, and the “collective spirit” hints at the spiritual and otherworldly role that the birds fulfill in the landscape of the poem. These terms are paired with “conflagrations of dark flames” that “singe” the persona’s “dreams nightly.” The dark flames are another infernal sinister presence, haunting the persona. The use of the verb “singe” demonstrates the sensation of burning within the persona’s mind. The...