Imagery In Poetry

Robert Penn Warren uses expertly crafted words to tie his poem together. From swooping imagery to heavy words, they combine to create a clear picture of the hawk’s journey.
The first paragraph sets the scene with descriptive colors and scenery. The sun is setting, and the reader is filled with anticipation of the hawk’s arrival. “Geometries,” “angularity,” and “guttural” are used to show how sharp and striking the scenery is. The hawk swiftly darts over the mountains and valleys, cutting through the air. The mention of pines adds to the crisp imagery, making the reader think of clean air and winter.
The second paragraph focuses more on the hawk than the scenery. It describes the hawk’s wings, and gives us more sharp words like “scythes” and “steel-edge.” The hawk beats its wings
with the creeping darkness, ending the light of day. It hunts down the last strands of daylight, cutting through them with its steel-edge wings. Thus the hawk represents Apollo, or the sun, both dictating how light falls upon the world. The hawk has been doing this all its life, as told by “honed,” which means it has perfected the technique.
There is a line in the second paragraph that says, “The crashless fall of stalks of Time.” The word “time” is deliberately capitalized in this line, emphasizing its importance.
Time is a crucial element to this hawk, as its flight takes place during a specific time of day, sunset.
The tenth line is alone in its stanza, a clear sign of its weighty significance. “The head of each stalk [referring here to the “fall of stalks of Time” of the last paragraph] is heavy with the gold of our error.” Gold is an extremely heavy material, adding on to the weight of this line. The implication here is that time is a heavy substance, and that the hawk can fly over this. I think this line suggests that the hawk is above the passage of time.
In the third paragraph the hawk flies high with the light, chasing it whilst looking at the advancing darkness. This paragraph confirms the hawk’s being outside of time, as it says “[The hawk] Who knows neither time nor error.” This sentence not only elevates the hawk to immortality, but also to godhood, as only divine beings are incapable of errors. The hawk, like a god, watches over the “unforgiven” land. It judges the the world with its gaze, but does not forgive
it.
The fourth paragraph starts to talk of other flying animals: the thrush and the bat, declaring them the last of their kind. This paragraph serves to compare these animals to the hawk. The thrush is still, which could mean it might be watching, sleeping, or dead. The bat has a vast knowledge of the world, and is implied to be as ancient as the hawk. Unlike the hawk, however, the bat is used to represent the night, the opposite of the hawk, but no less powerful. By this time, a star is visible in the night sky, piling on to the solar imagery.
In the last paragraph, the perspective shifts again. The earth is described like a machine, “grind[ing] on its axis,” and “dripp[ing]...like a leaking pipe in the cellar.” Despite there being no sign of life other than the birds, the earth spins on through the night like a well-oiled machine.