3.04.2014
venting his disgust
...Thoreau's Journal: 4-Mar-1859
We stood still a few moments on the Turnpike below Wright’s (the Turnpike, which had no wheel-track beyond Tuttle’s and no track at all beyond Wright’s), and listened to hear a spring bird. We heard only the jay screaming in the distance and the cawing of a crow. What a perfectly New England sound is this voice of the crow! If you stand perfectly still anywhere in the outskirts of the town and listen, stilling the almost incessant hum of your own personal factory, this is perhaps the sound which you will be most sure to hear rising above all sounds of human industry and leading your thoughts to some far bay in the woods where the crow is venting his disgust. The bird sees the white man come and the Indian withdraw, but it withdraws not. Its untamed voice is still heard above the tinkling of the forge. It sees a race pass away, but it passes not away. It remains to remind us of aboriginal nature.
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2 comments:
it seems that the crow an ugly bird by comparison,shows his distaste for the world around him in his own unique song, he see's the passing of time and change and can find nothing worthy in it ,perhaps long ago or long to come his song was and will be sweet!,so sweet that he will be the most beautiful of birds!,for now he will watch and wait,flying to any thing shiny in hope. michael jameson oldantiqueguy@hotmail.com
I know what he's talking about! The crows around our home in Maine caw frequently, and live here all year round. I like them, though. They're one of the few winter residents here. I'm just glad I don't own a cornfield, lest I should find them an enemy. I love his term: aboriginal nature. Nature that is indigenous to each area. Crows certainly are that way here in New England.
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