The Heaven of Animals

by James Dickey
p. 155

I really enjoy this poem because it is a great example of what I believe poetry is supposed to do: to make you think while bringing on a new, maybe even overwhelming emotion. After reading this poem for the first time, my feelings at the time, and even my sense of time and space, were completely displaced, and I felt the happiness, the feel of "Heaven," expressed by the poem. In the blurb about Dickey, Dickey is quoted of speaking of poetry being "the emotional, half-animal, intuitive way in which we actually experience the world" and "the forfeited animal grace of human beings." This is another great thing about this poem, the connection of humans to primal feelings, putting the reader to a primal state of mind that anyone can understand. "The soft eyes," "the riches wood," and "the deepest field" are things anybody (or at least in my case), not just animals desire after leaving this life. I especially love the way the poem ends, talking about the Heaven of those animals that are preyed upon, and them having "full knowledge" and "no fear, but acceptance, compliance." For me, the "Heaven" expressed in this poem is indescribable, a real work of art.