Chapter 10 Sound and Sense

The poem For a Lamb by Richard Eberhart has a very dark and vivid tone at the start. The poem gives a vivid image of a dead and mangled lamb lying atop daisies. Daisies are a white flower and white things often represent purity. At first I thought that maybe the lamb was tarnishing the purity and innocence, but a lamb is white also. The figure tarnishing the purity and innocence is whoever hurt the poor, sweet lamb. Eberhart notes that "the guts were out for the crows to eat" creating another disturbing image of an animal being eaten. The author tries to cover these descriptions up with the fact that the sheep is asleep. Erberhart says, "the sleep looked deep" implying that while it may sound painful, the lamb is asleep so it doesnt matter. This image immediately made me think of an image of Jesus Christ when he is on the cross. Jesus is presented with a crown of thorns around his head, like the lamb has daisies. While daisies and thorns are slightly different, I believe the image of jesus is still prevelant. The second stanza of this poem is much more ambiguous than the first. In the first stanza the reader knows exactly whats happening, but as it progresses, the lamb seems to lose its clarity. The first few words are "Where's the lamb" maybe implying that however this lamb died, it may still have an owner still looking for it. The lamb is "in the wind" showing that the owner or whoever proposed the first question could not handle hearing that it had died. The author again changes the reality of the gruesomeness by saying "there's a lamb in the daisies" in the last line.