Dave,
Thank you for the poem 'after Saba':
I guess the reason why Dave-Saba would dream of
spending his life talking to a goat is because he
knows of the depth of the goat's thoughts, and also
because one might easily presume, especially in the
case of goats, they might have been, in a previous
lives, sages, wise men: see Siddharta's story.
In Saba's case, the comparison of people to animal is
a poetical feature of the noblest kind. To animals, he
attributes the most refined characteristics,... that
only transversally people can really acquire, for
analogy.
The most beuautful poem wher he employs such a
rehorical device, is 'To my wife', where he compares
his wife (of which he was crazily fond all through his
life) to several domestic animals of great dignity. I
am looking now on the Internet to see if I can find a
version in English of this splendid poem, and will
e-mail back to you.
Erminia
--- "david.bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> (one for Erminia, this, I guess)
>
> The Goat
> (after Umberto Saba)
>
> I dreamt I'd spent my life
> talking to a goat. A goat alone
> in a mud field, tethered.
> Soaked in the grass, soused
> with ceaseless rain,
> bleating.
>
> Bleating to the pulse
> of grief. I answered her,
> sour at the start, but then because
> grief's voice is common,
> companionable
> and one.
>
> I heard that voice
> in the sorrow of a single goat.
> A goat with a Jewish face,
> reciting the toneless torah
> of all other ills, all other
> lives' laments.
>
>
>
> Best
>
> Dave
>
>
> David Bircumshaw
>
> Leicester, England
>
> Home Page
>
> A Chide's Alphabet
>
> Painting Without Numbers
>
>
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
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