Animals and Humans, Part Two

The "Sea Monster" blog referred to old concepts such as personification and anthropomorphism. There is also an ancient form of literature that seems unabashedly to personify, for it uses animals as the characters in stories; this form of literature is the fable. By being so explicit in its use of animals, however, fables actually don't personify. Instead of turning animals into humans, the fable turns humans into animals--sort of in the way actors become characters.

Probably the most satisfying part of ascribing human motives or attributes to animals is that we know we're wrong; the ascribing we're doing isn't literal; that's what makes it, and makes animals, humorous. Mules persist in certain behaviors, but they aren't stubborn, literally, in the way humans are. Foxes may be clever, but they are clever in an entirely foxish way. They're not being clever. They're being foxes. One way for us to appreciate their being foxes is to speak of them in human terms, all the while knowing we're not literally or scientifically speaking of them as humans. The use of figurative language and figurative thinking is simply a process of appreciation, not of scientific description, which can of course co-exist with figurative description. That is, a scientist can enjoy a good fable, especially one in which a scientists is played by--by a lemur, let's say.

Following is a fable-poem, a story that has simple origins: I simply noticed that a raven is mentioned in the story about Noah's ark. The dove from that story is famous, but I wondered about that raven, so I made up a story, which is mostly tongue-in-cheek, so I hope you take it that way:


Fable: Noah and Raven


And he sent forth a raven
Which went forth to and fro
Until the waters were dried up
From off the earth.

Genesis 8:7


Notice: Raven didn’t return and make a report.
Didn’t like the voyage from the first in fact.

Wasn’t surprised when, deep into the cruise,
Noah went sea-mad, tossed birds

Up into the wind. They fluttered back
To deck, bewildered, bruised, and flappable.

Raven thought, This isn’t working.
Then Noah, becalmed, dispatched Dove

And Raven on recon. Dove cooed.
Raven cawed, wondered Why not send

Seagull or Duck? Hence the term “water
birds.” Humans—as thick as two planks!

A portly black kite, Raven rode the breeze,
Alighted on a shred of dry land,

Ate surfaced slimy creatures. Told Dove,
Hey, you’re nuts to complete the mission,

Said, You watch, they’ll make your image
A symbol of something fine, hunt

Your kind, cook tenderness off your hollow
Bones, thank God not you for it, eat.

No big surprise to Raven when
The Noahs finally showed, parked the Ark,

Unloaded, promised God to be good,
Began to subdivide. The grandkids

Laughed like apes, threw rocks at Raven,
Flung filthy anti-avian epithets.

The little bullies wept for days
When Raven hired snakes to put

The fear of God in them. Old
Bird-brained Noah, though, turned out

To be almost all right. His hair went wild
Eider-white. He’d stumble out,

Toss bread-crumbs Raven’s way,
Tell the brood, Stop being s’goddamned

Mean to animals. The Old Man seemed
To have his doubts about Dry Land,

Spent most nights alone in the mildewed
Ark, playing cribbage with God. So

Wonder not, children of the Weather Channel,
Why millennia later ravens are resentful,

Strut snidely, rustle wings,
Curse us in Squawkese—us and our endless

Multiplication. They build nests like
Carpenters, love hard rain, keep their black

Exteriors as sleek as gangster cars,
Dive-bomb languid lovers two-by-two

In the pigeony park, know how
To read the rainbow signs.


Copyright 2007