"WHY WE LIVE WITH ANIMALS
"the howl that reaches from the dog right up
to the stars the moment you leave the house is welcome
news, you pause, your key just above the ignition,
thinking: someone misses me. some pup,
at any rate, would rather have you home
than not, but still, someone's got to shop
for dinner, do the laundry, banking, troop
through the everday like a good soldier or doom
us all to howl, hungry, behind locked doors
forever. so: since such howling makes a circle of
your absence, put the key in (thank you), turn
the motor on (ah, listen to that purr),
hit the streets and get those errands done.
someone back here's desperate for your love."
Alvin Greenberg
�
"the hand trembles. if there were no animals
to slide their heads up under it for soothing,
it would tremble worse. how quiet it is, smoothing
the fur down on the big dog's head. animals
ease us like water: the tide of great animals
rising in the night sky, an evening of falling
wings splashing into birches, the cat flowing
across your chest when you lie back: animals,
always waiting for us to wade among them; oceans
of animals: in the streets, the skies, the woods,
in zoos, at home, right down in the backyard grass,
the warm, shallow oceans of the beginnings of worlds,
magenta, salt, reptilian, oceans of absolution
the same turgid oceans we slithered out of once."
�
"some days even the grass shouts
how you're not welcome: get away! get off!
the trees spit on you and the house has had enough
of you, too: the moment you left, it locked you out
and one look at the sky's all it takes to find out
there's no place for you there, you'd stuff
yourself in a hole in the ground just to be safe
for an hour somewhere where there's nothing else about,
but the rocks, the rocks! and the shovels have all left town
and those clouds: the rain's sure to wash you loose
before you've taken even one deep breath
of dirt. and forget the river - it's got no use
for your lonely bones, for a life looped around
an empty leash, you don't even interest death."
Alvin
Greenberg
�
"somethings on the prowl out there and we
know it. not some half-starved, cellar-
shuffling,��� chain-clanking��� wall-knocker
in velvet slippers and smoke.��� worse. ��� we
feel it flutter beyond the edge of our
fire, tangible as a tornado, it waits;
quiet, hungry, quick, smart, and faster
than the flame that snaps its way, flick of our
hope and bluster. it smells like rotten meat
and howls the high, pure decibels of hate.
its breath's all fangs and claws, it loves the dark.
it can wait forever for us to turn our backs.
oh household pets, we know we ask too much
who keep you to place yourselves between it and us."
Alvin Greenberg
INDEX OF POETS
NEXT POET ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
"THE BOYS"
HOME: Nets to Catch the Wind��� ���
���
POETRY of Nature & Gardening��� ���
