"These are some of the things // you don't have to know because the melody / is like a small bird, maybe a yellow canary, / that wings its way into your mind / --no, into your heart-- / where there's a perch already // set up for it, a little trapeze / to swing back and forth on as it sings / and sings."
— Raab, Lawrence (b. 1946)
Author
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Penguin
Date
2009
Metaphor
"These are some of the things // you don't have to know because the melody / is like a small bird, maybe a yellow canary, / that wings its way into your mind / --no, into your heart-- / where there's a perch already // set up for it, a little trapeze / to swing back and forth on as it sings / and sings."
Metaphor in Context
[...] These are some of the things
you don't have to know because the melody
is like a small bird, maybe a yellow canary,
that wings its way into your mind
--no, into your heart--
where there's a perch already
set up for it, a little trapeze
to swing back and forth on as it sings
and sings, since a good melody
stays with you, sometimes much longer
than you'd like, the reason being
the relatively small number of notes.
And these can repeat and repeat until you
have to replace them with another melody,
shoo that bird away, so to speak, invite
a different one in. [...]
you don't have to know because the melody
is like a small bird, maybe a yellow canary,
that wings its way into your mind
--no, into your heart--
where there's a perch already
set up for it, a little trapeze
to swing back and forth on as it sings
and sings, since a good melody
stays with you, sometimes much longer
than you'd like, the reason being
the relatively small number of notes.
And these can repeat and repeat until you
have to replace them with another melody,
shoo that bird away, so to speak, invite
a different one in. [...]
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Lawrence Rabb, The History of Forgetting (New York: Penguin, 2009): 86-7)
Date of Entry
03/12/2011
