Friday, September 19, 2003

the poetics and politics of drift i walk my dog, each 6:30am morning, at bartholomew park.  today i wore a long-sleeved shirt, and my ears felt cold.  the clouds were moving, and the leaves, and there was no one around.  bartholomew park is dirty, and ill-used.  the stream that runs through it is turgid, foul-smelling, and choked with fast-food wrappers and beer cans.  the park has its pleasures and surprises, however.  there is a flock of green parrotlets here, exiled or escaped from human captivity.  they are furtive, and understandably wary of people, but i have crept up on them, once or twice.  once i saw them (i counted eleven) sitting perfectly still in a row, along a fence.  another time i found them crawling about, cooing and chirping, on a net behind the home plate of the baseball field.  until very recently, there were two rangy german shepherd puppies in the park as well.  i guess someone dumped them there.  they would circle round me and my dog, barking and tentatively wagging their tails.  i could never get them to come close.  one morning i left my dog at home, and brought a handful of biscuits.  they wouldn't come within ten feet of me.  as the days passed, the park became uglier.  the puppies were raiding the garbage bins for food, strewing paper and detritus about the fields.  they became bolder and wilder, and alarmingly thin.  i finally called animal control, and tuesday they were gone.  i tell myself it doesn't matter - they would have starved, or become feral, or rabid - and that i should just forget about it.  except that i can't forget about it very much, you know?  i imagine them caged, separate and alone.  or dead - piled up like trash for the incinerator somewhere.  last night i dreamed that i was at the beach.  my cat and dog, and the two puppies were playing in the surf.  the waves were green, translucent folds breaking to white as they crashed over the animals' bodies.  i watched them play in the surf, and i squinted in the sun, and in the sun's reflection on the water, and i was happy.  then a black form drifted up, and took the puppies in its mouth, back down and away into the water.   8:02:10 PM