tags: Listen 014, Miller Williams, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend who writes "Here's one I've always loved -- well, as long as I've known it."
Listen 014
I threw a snowball across the backyard.
My dog ran after it to bring it back.
It broke as it fell, scattering snow over snow.
She stood confused, seeing and smelling nothing.
She searched in widening circles until I called her.
She looked at me and said as clearly in silence
as if she had spoken,
I know it's here, I'll find it,
went back to the center and started the circles again.
I called her two more times before she came
slowly, stopping once to look back.
That was this morning. I'm sure that she's forgotten.
I've had some trouble putting it out of my mind.
-- Miller Williams, The Ways We Touch: Poems (University of Illinois Press; 1997).
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"Listen 014" by Miller Williams is a strong poem. It works because of its clarity and apparent simplicity. The subject seems to be an anomaly in the human-dog play.
But the line "went back to the center and started the circles again" gives us a clue. The poem forces us, the purportedly smarter species, to go back and circle through the meaning of them poem again, searching for the meaning. If it is there, it is invisible -- and in how we (searching for meaning within meaning) are akin to the dog (searching for snow in snow).
On that theme, but darker in tone, as I dig for the evolutionary roots of "play" behavior in dogs, is the following.
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Darwin in the Suburbs: Rat-Battle of Marengo
by
Jonathan Vos Post
Paralyzed rat in a black dog's jaws
down from the orange tree to its doom.
Ears twitch to excited barks, long pause
beyond the bounds of the living room.
Regular breath, no visible blood,
red eyes stare since the violent shake
severed the spine, California quake
breaks the back of a garden snake.
The snake-like tail of the rat is black.
The black dog enjoys a knotted rope
instinctively shaken, a broken back
for a snake or rat means the end of hope.
Flat on the lawn. No dawn. No plan.
Casket's a black plastic garbage can.
1010-1118
17 June 2007
Copyright 2007 by Magic Dragon Multimedia.
All rights reserved Worldwide. May not be reproduced without permission.
May be posted electronically provided that it is transmitted unaltered, in its entirety, and without charge.
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If all your April days are not yet filled
Your calendar not marked in, line by line
With poems by the skilled and not-so-skilled
Then chill us, please, with Robert Frost's Design.