Some domesticated beasts have wild descendants whom we've forced to make their own ways in the world. In Montmartre cemetery, feral cats leap at dusk from behind Nijinsky’s gravestone; others rove our Parliament Hill. In Yemen, yellow pi-dogs are said to tell the news each night to a certain prophet in his tomb. Cast out and unbounded, the ferals circle back, observing.
Meanwhile, we tell ourselves countless tales of wolves, bears, and ape-mothers Kala taking in Romulus, Remus, Atalanta, Tarzan. So few of them are true. Do we repeat them because we long to be wild? Or forgiven our infidelities?
Image: Hannah Swithinbank.
Posted to dVerse Poets at:
ReplyDeletehttp://dversepoets.com/2011/11/26/poeticswild/
This went home well enough: I've had feral cats jump out at night. Nijinsky appeared vividly from your write.
ReplyDeleteha - think i should visit Montmartre cemetery and see that feral cats leaping from behind Nijinsky’s gravestone... but think i can see them in our german bundestag as well..smiles - and maybe we repeat these tales to remind us...we still are.. enjoyed this kathy
ReplyDeletei think the TV and gaming have become escapes to a wilder world beyond where we are yet taking us further and further from it the more disconnected we get...the cats at the garave is a really cool touch...i like...
ReplyDeleteVery interesting idea at the end. I always think we have these myths because we have the idea of supermen combining both animal and human understandings. Also, I suppose there is the idea of surviving all wilds. But I love your idea of the infidelities--K.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, the creatures themselves know no moral code, and therefore no need to forgive. They only know about survival. Nonetheless, your poem poses a very provocative question!
ReplyDeletetrue,
ReplyDeletestories about the wild,
actual experiences on the wild,
they are different, yet we do need fantasy or magic upon the wild.
We repeat them like we eat them, for our own convenience, and our mission to remake everything on this planet in our own euphemistically plastic image. This is artful and finely tuned writing, excellent use of contrast and comparison.
ReplyDeleteHell of a question. It goes right to the Lascaux image I see repeated to the right of the page; we've been asking this for ages.
ReplyDelete