[Vera Dokter]

We just talked about the representation of the nest that the daws build in “The Tower” poem. We related it to the matter of taking stock of one’s life, which is of course directly related to the first line of the third part of the poem “it is time that I wrote my will.” However, I interpreted it in a different way. I thought the twigs were a reference to the individual ideas that common men have, they are insignificant and small, and almost nobody notices them. However, when they are all put together (“when they have mounted up”‘), as in  putting them, or relating them to the collective mind, they are able to form a “warm, wild nest” on which the mother bird can rest. And of course it’s wild, for if it were not it would be too man-made, like every other rational and grey thing in life.

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