In Praise of Creation

Gratitude Awe symbols of central ideas

Creation split into 3 sections mythology (Chinese)
God initial impressions Say more than one thing about each Q

Nature explore images in depth


That one bird, one star,
The one flash of the tiger’s eye
Purely assert what they are,
Without ceremony testify.
Testify to order, to rule –
How the birds mate at one time only,
How the sky is, for a certain time, full
Of birds, the moon sometimes cut thinly.
And the tiger wrapped in the cage of his skin,
Watchful over creation, rests
For the blood to pound, the drums to begin,
Till the tigress’ shadow casts
A darkness over him, a passion, a scent,
The world goes turning, turning, the season
Sieves earth to its one sure element
And the blood beats beyond reason.
Then quiet and birds folding their wings,
The new moon waiting for years to be stared at here,
The season sinks to satisfied things –
Man with his mind ajar.
• Enjambment
That one bird, one star, • Repetition – ONE, TESTIFY, BIRDS
The one flash of the tiger’s eye • Symbolism
Purely assert what they are,
Without ceremony testify. • Bird/ BIRDS – freedom, sing,
divine, link between heaven and
earth
• Spiritual experience of nature • Star
• a kind of eulogy, a poem of • Tiger’s eye
praise • Testify
• God – omnipresent, incorporeal, • Assert
• Meanings – implicit • Without ceremony
• The need to prove God’s • the existence of God
existence • Validation of her religious faith
• Existence
Testify to order, to rule –
How the birds mate at one time only, • Question the beaty
How the sky is, for a certain time, full • Divinity
Of birds, the moon sometimes cut thinly. • Spiritual awakening
• Nature reveals – essence
• Testify – witness (they testify) • Mystery of nature
• Order, Rule
• Birds – again. Migration. Spiritual humans, home instinct
• Moon – menstrual cycle, femininity, changes, seasons
• awe at the way the universe is set up
• the speaker’s observations
• the speaker marvels at the way the earth and universe function
• TONE
And the tiger wrapped in the cage of his skin,
Watchful over creation, rests
For the blood to pound, the drums to begin,
Till the tigress’ shadow casts

• Tiger – middle
• Metaphor – bars of the cage = contrast to freedom, complications (dev), isolation
• Cat and moon – Greek mythology
• Solitude overcome by the instinct
• Rests – blood
• Drums – onomatopoeia – appeals to a sense of hearing
• CREATION of New Life as a result of tiger and tigress mating
• Mystery and beauty of mating - male/female ying/yang complementary
• Sentence structure – the tiger rests
A darkness over him, a passion, a scent,
The world goes turning, turning, the season
Sieves earth to its one sure element
And the blood beats beyond reason.

• Darkness –contrast
• The earth turning
• Season- reason – rhyme, rationality
• The reason for every season
• one sure element
• Beyond reason
• Alliteration - sound
• Syntax – very long sentence
• Many verbs – energy and passion
Then quiet and birds folding their wings,
The new moon waiting for years to be stared at here,
The season sinks to satisfied things –
Man with his mind ajar.

• Quiet
• Fold – over
• New moon – mystery, cycle of nature – full moon, mating
• Sibilance – depths, sinking – pressure from, closes, end of season
• FINAL LINE - man is a metaphysical element, man – intelligent
• Mind ajar – open partially. Ambiguous - out of harmony
Essay

How does a poet create a sense of awe

towards the natural world?