Making a Noise in the World
Jan 16 2025
The dogs are barking.
Out in the dark, where they’re free to run
and be themselves.
I presume they’ve caught a scent
and smell danger in the air,
have heard a twig snap
the soft padding of paws.
Or imagine it all
and are competing to be loudest.
As if I’m not only counting on them
but keeping score.
As if one bark
triggers the next
even fiercer one
in a self-reinforcing cascade.
Or perhaps, they need to be seen
and heard,
as if making a noise in the world
is reassurance you exist.
Which, I admit, may be more about me
than them;
my search for meaning
my feeling unseen.
Because, as best I can tell
the hypothetical
has no presence in their lives.
While I’m all about the possible
no matter how improbable;
the constant worrying,
the fretting about the future,
the planning for contingencies
I can't even prevent.
About my dogs' well-being.
About old age
and the infirmity
I’ll too soon come to face.
And about the state of the world,
from autocracy
to climate change.
Which, like manic barking, feeds on itself;
but unlike their innocent noise
this heating planet
is a runaway train
spiralling out of control.
But who knows,
maybe they aren’t showing off.
Because I’m as oblivious to the world of dogs
as a blind man
about to step off
the canyon edge;
the thick miasma of smell
and pin-drop sound
in which they can’t help but swim.
Or perhaps I idealize their lives
and minimize their depth.
That they do worry
and have a plan;
their furious barking
warning the wolf pack off,
the solitary fox
skulking through the underbrush,
the wind
whistling through the cracks
and rattling the eaves.
Not to mention the mailman
who keeps coming back
despite their dogged threats.
I like this line best:
as if making a noise in the world
is reassurance you exist.
Because the incessant barking strikes me as a pure exuberant assertion of self: the ego, with no pretence or need to justify itself.
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