Joseppapap

‘Waking up the Rake’ depicts the protagonist, who while working at the Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Foundation starts to see the depth and connect between human and animal life.

The origin of life is brought out by Hogan as she speaks of the constant cycle of life and death.

“The new intertwines with the old” She talks of how the old and the new blend, with the blood of both her and her grandmother resting in harmony, a new origin and the end of one.

Linda Hogan brings forth the bittersweet sentiment related to death in her piece “Waking up the Rake”.

One of her primary tasks is to clean up the carcasses of rats, mice and of rabbits. The lines “A deer carcass begins to look beautiful and rich in its torn redness, the muscle and bone exposed in the shape life took on for a while as it walked through meadows and drank at creeks” exposes the hidden beauty in death. Even after life has faded, the memory of life still lingers. It is reminiscent of the life that was once lived. She mentions how the narrow human perspective expands as we start to see death as inevitable.

The life of the birds at the center confuses her as she sees the imbalance that exists between the birds and the humans with the need for both to understand the other. She talks about the paradox that exists. Humans are the reason that the survival of animals and that we are also portrayed as their enemies. She says we are both the wounders and the healers. The aspect of raking the earth mentions the art and the rhythm in life and the constant give and take that surrounds it.

Hogan concludes by saying that every day there is new life which comes about where the Earths God’s are reborn and they start afresh after death.

~ Diti Golder (1313149)

"If winter comes can spring be far behind" is a line that caters to a symbolic interpretation of a vicious-circle. 

The coming of the winter can be understood with the coming of a tragic situation or the period of the season, in itself, can be compared to...