Roadkill Tragedy by Emma

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Submission Name: Roadkill Tragedy dots

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Author:	Emma_closes
ASL Info:	15/f/fl
Elite Ratio:	4.28 - 88/111/44
Words:	198

Class/Type:	Poetry/
Total Views:	194
Average Vote:	No vote yet.
Bytes:	1366

Description:
It really was 10:02 on a Thursday night, and there really was a dying raccoon in my front lawn, complete with its own personal companion. It's one of those times where roadkill just makes you want to cry.

Roadkill Tragedy dots

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It's 10:02
on a Thursday night
(boy is it cold for October).
But my interest is not in the weather.
In my font yard lay
not only one, but two little racoons.
They're completely absorbed in each other.
Tonight as I saw the stony face
of a self-important police man
I realized my place,
it's beneath them.
He says "there's not much we can do"
(which actually isn't that true).
It really means he just doesn't care.
And why should he?
Babies are dying right now
and I'm watching an injured raccoon
at 10:07 at night.
But God, this just doesn't feel right.

I watch my father shine a light on them
and I'm reminded that I am
still young,
weak and powerless.
I watch the two
and, though I'm no expert on raccoons,
I like to imagine that one was male
and the other his mate.
I watch him groom his
injured lover.
They're completely absorbed in each other.
She reaches a paw to his face.
And I know my place
as an observer.
Perhaps it's in death that they look so
oddly human.
Or perhaps it's in death that we
look so purely animal.

Submitted on 2005-11-06 17:07:49 Terms of Service / Copyright Rules
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1: >_<
2: I dunno...
3: meh!
4: Pretty cool
5: Wow!

||| Comments |||
  the little things: you have font were you should have front and racoon for raccoon.

I like you play on humanism here. Some of the attributes that we consider uniquely human like love compassion and tenderness you impart on the raccoons while the animal indifference of tuff luck you give to the police officer who here represents the disconnect of man and nature.

What really makes this poem work so well is that your observations encompass all of the players from the root of the policeman’s indifference to your context and age in relation to your ability to make a difference. Your inability to act out your will becomes a metaphor for our own inability to act within the larger society for natures good. Perhaps you didn't mean too or even better perhaps you did, but the poem becomes a general statement of helplessness for the state of nature at large.
| Posted on 2005-11-07 00:00:00 | by Car va g o | [ Reply to This ]
  I think this oddly a great poem, it has feeling and wonder through out it. i liked the repetitiveness of the words "they are completely absorbed in each other" and how in one verse you say "I realized my place" and in the second you say "I know my place" these are direct lines that pull the thought together. great write. you have a wonderful talent of making the reader "feel" your thoughts and words!~~tracy
| Posted on 2005-11-07 00:00:00 | by tmullins | [ Reply to This ]
  I am very impressed by this poem. It is so easy to dismiss the lives of animals as being somehow inferior to our own, yet it would be odd if they too did not experience love and grief. I think your ending is sublime with us recognizing the human nature of animals in their death and our own animal nature in our own death. We have a moral probelm here in New Zealand where we are overrun with 80 millions of a noxious pest, teh Australian brush-tailed possum. They are literally destroying our native forest. Because they are nocturnal, you frequently come across them bumbling along the road at night and most people deliberately run them down at night. In their pouch might well be a baby Joey, but we somehow blame them for the damage they are doing as if it is their fault that they are alive and over here.
| Posted on 2005-11-06 00:00:00 | by hanuman | [ Reply to This ]
  This was a unique poem. I am more than happy that someone decided to write about something besides all of the sad depressing things in our world, though I found this sad, it also felt like things were as they were meant to be. As if nature takes care of it self and its all part of a cycle. We could intervene but we just don't seem to care.

I did like this poem especially for the last line. It gave a nice ending touch to it

"Perhaps it's in death that they look so
oddly human.
Or perhaps it's in death that we
look so purely animal.'

It kind of makes you think. Are we animals? Or are we really more important than them in the way that we like to believe? Do we not both have feelings? You can probably guess the way I'm leaning towards.

I think the only things that could really be 'fixed' (I use that word loosely because there really is not such right/wrong way to do something like poetry) would be some of the lines like:
"still young,
weak and powerless."
I think they could be brought into one line so that they don't feel as broken up.

great write : )
-mystmaker
| Posted on 2005-11-06 00:00:00 | by MystMaker | [ Reply to This ]

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