Bindi Barked (Poem)

April 1, 2020 Jeffrey Mallinson

Bindi barked at neighbors and squirrels and the ghosts of dogs and the ghosts of their poisoned coyote foes, those murderers, who are only hated for being born on the other side of our cinder block walls. I told her "Quiet!" Glad for the watcher, and glad for the alert. I told her to "bark maybe only once." She looked at me, head cocked, attentive. I turned my back. She barked once more. I scolded her. She sulked back in. I wronged her. She learned my language. She obeyed my will. What more could be learned about human language by a one-year-old mutt? Wisest of all. Tastebud of God: innocent. ignorant. perplexed, but at peace. Meanwhile, her feline sister tries to speak by literally pissing on the keys of the figurative cosmic piano. Her parents may have ears to hear the crying infant, the raging sea, the restless mob. These all reveal the temperature of the Spirit. So receive the insight but don't judge. Bindi learned the vocabulary. Maybe the syntax too. But not the human drama. And she's glad to decline a translator, if I've got a dried chicken claw.

Jeff Mallinson

Note: This was written in quarantine during the 2020 pandemic. The poor dog didn’t quite know what to make of our new lifestyle, having been living on the road for months at a time and running freely on Gulf Coast beaches.