Sleekit Cowrin’
Sleekit Cowrin’
by sharon olds
When a caught mouse lay dead, for a week,
and stuck to the floor, I started setting
the traps on a few of my ex’s and my old
floral salad plates. Late
one night, when I see one has sprung, I put it on the
porch, to take it to the woods in the morning, but by
morning I forget, and by noon—and by after-
noon the Blue Willow’s like a charnal roof
in Persia where the bodies of the dead were put for the
scholar vultures to pick the text
of matter and the text of spirit apart.
The mouse has become a furry barrow
burrowed into by a beetle striped
in stripes of hot and stripes of cold
coal—head-first, it eats its way in
to the heart sweeter than dirt, to the mouse-bowels
saltier, beeswax and soap
stopped in the small intestinal channels.
And bugs little as seeds are seething
all over the hair, as if the rodent
were food rejoicing. And the Nicrophorous
cuts and thrusts, it rocks and rolls
its tomentose muzzle, and its wide shoulders,
in. And I know, I know, I should put
my dead marriage out on the porch
in the sun, and let who can, come
and nourish of it—change it, carry it
back to what it was assembled from,
back to the source of the light whereby it shone.
The best laid schemes of mice and men often go to shit. Beetle turds, such as in this case.
It’s an honor to have a Sharon Olds poem on H & H!
The title, “Sleekit Cowrin'”, is a reference to the Robert Burn’s poem “To a Mouse: On turning her up in her nest with the plough” http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/554.htm derived from the 1st line of the poem–“Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie”. Both Burn’s and Old’s poem have the mouse as its subject but contain vastly different gists.
When i began reading this poem i was struck by the ‘beatiness’ of so many one syllable words that i thought it might have a certain meter but didn’t find any. So many ‘quick step’ words simply yet craftilly arranged are a beauty unto themselves leaving an elegant footprint apiece on the reader’s blank slate beach.
Thru most of the poem i felt as though the whole point was the strange human compulsion of gaining something beautiful from the conventionally morose–death in this case in all its shrouds of gloominess. But the last 6 lines of the poem change all this and expose a metaphor of a different sort.
The poem opens with some ‘mouse catching’ details and quickly delves deep into the psychology of decay [the dead mouse]. What most would consider ‘yucky’, the poet finds captivating and even exotic. The trap was put on a salad plate at the beginning of poem and as the poem progresses that same ordinary item becomes ‘the Blue Willow’ which is a particular chinaware design–the mundane has become enamoured. I love this simile: …”and by afternoon the Blue Willow’s like a charnal roof in Persia where the bodies of the dead were put for the scholar vultures to pick the text of matter and the text of spirit apart.”
The poem then goes into some gory yet still somehow fascinatingly handsome detail about the bugs that begin to inhabit the dead mouse–still there is a beauty imbued into this horror.
Then in the last 6 lines the clencher: …”I know, I should put my dead marriage out on the porch in the sun, and let who can, come and nourish of it–change it, carry it back to what it was assembled from, back to the source of the light whereby it shone.”
The metaphor of the poem is this: the mouse is the dead marriage (or even the poet herself). I think the bugs that pick apart the mouse could be co-workers {co-faculty} with their cruel yet natural to the world gossipmongering. People are like that–they love dirty laundry to climb out of their boredom and plus it helps them feel better about themselves when they’re able to feast on others’ misfortunes and hardships. I think the point is this: ‘Death’ comes in many different forms–and there is a beauty that still lingers in that death.
Cool words i looked up in this poem:
Charnal: ” charnel house is a vault or building where human skeletal remains are stored. They are often built near churches for depositing bones that are unearthed while digging graves. The term can also be used more generally as a description of a place filled with death and destruction.” In the poem it’s used as an adjective.
Tomentose: “Tomentose is a term used to describe plant hairs that are bent and matted, forming a woolly coating. Often the hairs are silver or gray-colored.”
Thanks for sharin’ Sharon! i hope things are looking up for you! Hang in there!