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Showing posts from May, 2010

To the dog who tore my heart

indolent, half-lifted eyelid. A tail wagged drowsily. A half-whine of acknowledgment. A limp, reluctant handshake and taunting dejection on not getting the promised biscuit. A quiet, piercing stare as the clock strikes six that hour of his business. An ambling unconcerned walk, immune to tugs on the leash and no interest in thrown balls. Fingers clasped firmly in teeth, a demonstration of power that was right now not being used. Hungry, innocent eyes pleading for dinner, not counting the meal consumed minutes ago. The quiet snore, teeth half-exposed in warning to let sleeping dogs lie. Just like the quiet vacuum unfilled by furry memories of the dog who tore my heart .

On Niceness

Yesterday, someone was nice to us. They came home to invite us nicely - nicely and personally - for a wedding in their nice family. We nicely appreciated that someone was being nice to us. But how nicely does one appreciate niceness? By saying thanks for all that niceness? Or saying thanks for all that niceness and also nicely pointing out how that someone was nice while someone not nice, someone else not nice and someone else not nice at all were not being nice? I mean, if someone is nice, let's be thankful for that, and nicely so? Are we being nice in not-so-nicely pointing out how someone else was not nice? Could one think it's like nicely saying well, thank you for niceness but we don't care for your niceness because what would would really be nice is that someone else being nice. Is that nice?

At A Historic Site

I have before me a tourist brochure. I think it is laughing at me. The way ink soaked into paper can laugh. A way that is silent, malignant. It seems amused. That I have come to gawk, to gape. Where my forefather once cut down other people's forefathers. Like that of the brochure writer's. Or did not. I must trust the story the ink tells me. For the blood soaked in the ground never speaks.