When I Heard My Childhood Name Cried Out, and: Dog Songs
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WHEN I HEARD MY CHILDHOOD NAME CRIED OUT
Even before the fireThat summer afternoonThe cottage seemed to be meltingLike a sugar cubeIn the mouth of a donkeyThe field above itA shade of ultraviolet only birds seeMy father heaping sticksAnd shrubs in a pile and when he lit itThe fire marchedUp the field ragged spitting rudeA motley army humming a ribald songWind the songThe field a featherBarb aflameMeantime inside I lay on my backOn hardwoodA book I loved above meO and the sea the seacrimson sometimes like fire andthe glorious sunsetsand the figtrees inthe Alameda gardens yesWhen I heard my childhood nameCried outIt was my mother crying itDad laughingI ran outsideMy mother keeping pace solemnlyWith tufts of blueIncandescent elementalsFireIt's okay it's okay Dad was saying don't worry guysAs flame sipped the trees [End Page 159] Like a bear a waterfallThen came a caravan of trucksUpon our pathLocal housefathersUncombed dignitaries in high bootsAstronauts upon the greenMen who know damn wellWhat side of the bread to butterMy mother wavedDad spoke to eachAnd the men unamused stampedUpon the lightCrushing in a dance the afterfeatherAs Dad walked the blistering rutsTheir trucks had madeStrolled in the cottageSlid on a Thelonious Monk recordPut his feet up lit a cigarGrinning [End Page 160]
DOG SONGS
Child actor Jackie Cooperloved dogs. In 1931on the set of the comedy SkippyDirector Norman Taurogto help Cooper act sadthreatened to kill the boy's dog.It worked! Cooper criedand vomited till he was sedated.
I tried to find the nameof Cooper's dogbut could not. That storyis about the star.The dog illustratesJackie Cooper's abilityto love.
Would Cooperif not dead of old agebe repulsed by thestray dogs of Dharamsala?I think he'd love themdespite their bony ribsand seeping wounds.I wish he were hereto see these two three-legged dogsplay in the road!
When Buddha said"I don't quarrel with the world,the world quarrels with me,"I think he meantthat feeling of trying to sleepwhile a dog pack barkstheir fool heads offoutside your window. [End Page 161] On holiday in OrissaTiina and I were delightedto meet the red dogsof Puri. "Why," I askedone romantic eveningwalking the shoreholding hands at dusk,"are they all red?"
The Chinantecs of Oaxacabelieve when you diea dog helps you cross the waterto the land of the dead.
"I don't know," Tiina saidas puppy after puppywashed up beside uson the surf. [End Page 162]
JOHN WALL BARGER's poems have appeared inAmerican Poetry Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rattle, The Cincinnati Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Best of the Best Canadian Poetry. His fourth book is The Mean Game (Palimpsest Press, 2019). He lives in Philadelphia and teaches a poetry workshop at The University of the Arts.
