The Animal Shrieks in its Enclosure

1 University of Chicago

The Animal Shrieks in Its Enclosure OR: Tigers, Cigarettes, and Sacrifice

Julia Hesse-Fong CRWR 12123: Ecopoetics Jennifer Scappettone 7 March 2017

2 To Whom It May Concern: I, **********, tenant of this property, have noticed over the past century, and with increasing frequency over the past years, excessive noise in the form of shrieks from what sounds like a tiger, emanating from my bedroom wall. In the contract agreed upon, all maintenance and complaints about the hospitability (including but not limited to auditory environment) of this property would be addressed by the management company with speed and without tenant liability.

Unfortunately, this section of the contract has not been honored. I am disappointed because this service was not performed to any degree, and the liability for this nuisance was misrepresented. Though it was certainly not the first occurrence of the nuisance, in the year of 1858, I began to keep a log of the occurrences of this noise. The shriek first manifested quietly, but the pitch of the noise and the largeness of it grew exponentially, until each shriek could not be distinguished from another shriek. This growth occurred for approximately 50 years, started in 1927, and then fell in frequency. I no longer heard so many shrieks during the day or night, and thought I could move on with my daily routine with little interruption. However, 20 years ago, in 1997, the frequency of the shrieks began to increase again, until I could no longer ignore the problem.

In regards to the nature of the noise, it seems to emanate from the vent on the wall of my bedroom from the next unit over. Though the aforementioned nuisance remains my primary complaint, I would also like to mention that through this vent wafts smoke. It is not the smoke that bothers me. It is that pathetic tiger shriek, which worsens my insomnia and prevents me from maintaining proper sleep hygiene.

It is reasonable to suggest that the tiger shrieks and smoke is owed to the tradition of this sound and smell persisting through over thousands of years. It is also reasonable to suggest that some tiger noise is to be expected as the tiger was captured from the wild. In response to the former suggestion, I assert that the argument of the necessity for adherence to tradition gives no basis from which to legally justify your ignorance of my former complaints, of which there have been several.

3 PROLOGUE

…imagine a system… subject

=

sacrificer

object

=

what is sacrificed

entity

=

sacrificed to/for

…where…

the fatal flaw: the divide between the subject and the entity, the object is translator, intercessor, “standing-for1,” or in-between, the subject and the entity. by offering up the object, the subject forfeits power to the intercessor, and must rely on them to communicate directly with the entity. how can the subject know the object will communicate faithfully? …in order to understand the animal we need to reinterpret sacrifice…

when the cycle turns to this…look for smoke

*

1

Naomi Janowitz in “Rereading Sacrifice: The Semiosis of Blood” outlines the different interpretations of sacrifice as given by Hubert and Mauss.

4 SUNDARBANS AND THE ANIMAL

the sundarbans, largest existing mangrove forest in the world, lies on the western side of india and extends into bangladesh. the delta is flooded twice daily from water from river from sea. *

I first understood tides in a bathtub (standing up the warm hot water fell / sitting down the warm hot water rose) unsure how the moon plays into things so believing some ghost hand (lifted moon and shook it dry / submerged moon in ocean) (thus water fall / thus water rise) now sure how the moon plays into things, I no longer admit the ghost hand the water no longer washes off my hands my skin smoke and oil-slick

mangrove ecosystems store large amounts of carbon dioxide and house vast biodiversity, shielding inner land during tropical storms. the sundarbans protect the largest population of bengal tigers. tigers guard the forest from man’s intrusion. rising sea-levels threatens the region, and thus the bengal tiger. *

*

in 1979, refugees from east pakistan (now bangladesh) sought refuge within india. migrants from the upper and middle classes had less difficulty finding a place to settle, but many poorer refugees (many untouchables) fled to the island of marichjhanpi2 in the Sundarbans

2

Annu Jalais. “Dwelling on Morichjhanpi: When Tigers Became 'Citizens', Refugees 'TigerFood'.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 40, no. 17, 2005, pp. 1757–1762.

5

look is city bath high an said to see the as if and

Ó ô===ô they said ô===ô © å ô===ô this ô===ô ? ô===ô underwater ô===ô å± Ó ô===ô room ô===ô © å ô===ô walls ô===ô ? ô===ô answer ô===ô å± Ã ô===ô me ô===ô ô===ô water ô===ôW ¨ ô===ô exile ô===ô ? ô===ô refuge ô===ô ­

where incredible in the between i received the city you can erupt was certain was not

marichjhanpi, an area designated as a protected forest. so this unwanted residence violated the forest acts. the government responded. tear gassed. leveled. starved. killed3. it was called massacre. all they had done was ask for the incredible city. they say the year of this massacre the animal became a citizen2. it saw how the blood was spilt from the same kind. its fangs became law when the tiger was nationalized. though the tiger sits at the top of the food chain within the forest, the forest slowly recedes. one by land and one by sea, the water levels rise at one natural border, while overpopulation crowds and poachers crouch at the edge of another. waiting for space. waiting for skin and bones. *

3

Mallick, Ross. “Refugee Resettlement in Forest Reserves: West Bengal Policy Reversal and the Marichjhapi Massacre.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 58, no. 1, 1999, p. 107.

6 WOUNDS AND BLOOD

wound speak using suffering of the body as a portal for connection with the divine, st. fina laid paralyzed on a plank for 6 years4, mimicking the suffering of christ on the cross. her body rotted and festered. still she prayed unite me with god when my body goes gone. where her body was removed from the bank, white violets were growing.

“A wound gives off its own light surgeons say. If all the lamps in the house were turned out you could dress this wound by what shines from it5”

wound bleed

“blood sprinkled inside the sanctuary decontaminates the sanctuary and is needed because the pollution that accompanies sin affects not only the sinner but also the sanctuary itself. Once the system is operational, individuals can make use of the various sacrifices for many purposes including atonement. . . extended by their blood manipulations . . . worked in the cult as a kind of fumigator, purifier, and “replacer” all wrapped into one6”

blood speak

so we speak bloodied to the gods. offering up the red of us to blue above. listening for an answer. before we offered the blood of our kind, then our blood was pardoned, traded for animal blood. using blood as sacrifice.

*

4

Petroff, Elizabeth. Body and Soul: Essays On Medieval Women and Mysticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.

5 Carson, Anne. The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos. New York: Knopf, 2001. Print.

6 Ibid 1.

7 MODERN SACRIFICE

once I thought sacrifice was something that one gives up without the expectation of receiving something back. but sacrifice is nearly always economic7. sacrifice with the intention of receiving something (favor, love, situation) in return. even when the reward cannot be delivered—like the incredible city. economic sacrifice negates the sacrificial act. to sacrifice, to give something up—implies a directionality. not to give away, to give up. the original model of sacrifice. what kind of sacrifice does not negate? a-economic sacrifice8. sacrifice without the intention of receiving in return. but when does this happen? when do we give something up without this expectation? it cannot unless the subject is unwilling. all other sacrifice requires a choice. choosing to give something up implies some degree of freedom to sacrifice or not sacrifice. thus, only when that freedom is taken away and the subject is forced can ‘true’ sacrifice occur without expectation of return. * so what would these types of sacrifice look like today? a sacrificial ritual, all smoking and bleeding and praying? *

7 8

Keenan, Dennis King. The Question of Sacrifice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. Print.

Ibid 7.

8 SMOKE

occasionally and before, the ritual was fire. the worship was fire. because it was light, the first thing and start of the world we know in the story many of us know. there was no light or little of it and then light came and warmth came. or light was brought and warmth was brought—please find a word in between came and was brought! though unclear whether light came or was brought. no doubt exists as to the form we chose, which was fire which burned up. so what other direction, other than the direction fire turns, the light that began us, would we turn? is there

if there is, the distinction is in smoke not so long ago and even now, blood and fire/ served as intercessors between subject and entity / wound bleeds and the fire burns and what / comes of the ceremony? first, the smoke / which now burns thin in tame altar fires / smoke accompanies worship / it conjures the entity best, and exorcizes ghosts. / how to tell whether the ghosts arrive unseen / only felt with raised bumps on the skin? / or fire shows ghosts like heat reveals invisible ink or / iodine purples cell walls lying there / in the smoke

light made mortal makes smoke it is difficult now for me to say this without the guilt of a violent wall—between two things which may not be things opposites which may not be opposite extremes which may not be extreme— and owning no construction license

the product of incomplete combustion and incomplete fire. most smoke is 9 composed of what was living and was unburnt—carbon and oils and tar and ash

9

"What Is Smoke." Science Learning Hub. N.p., 19 Nov. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

9 smoke ghost-conjures and raises once living things to up above— where star fire’s smokeless light is born of fusion and fire only brought from earth— so christ dies on wood, bleeding from wounds, replacing the fire light of light and rising up so in mimicry of celestial light we use fire and smoke to speak! * TO SELF-SACRIFICE

the three faiths of the book fixate on sacrifice. beginning with the near-sacrifice of isaac by abraham— animal blood spills instead of human blood. then the practice and place of the ritual. for christians the culmination of sacrifice is with he who sacrificed his life for the sake of all. an act of self-sacrifice, which requires a departure from the original model, where subject uses object to communicate with entity (i.e. subj. à obj. à ent.). mix up subject and the object, reflecting that self-sacrificer is also sacrificed object. entity being conserved. subject / object

entity

by self-sacrifice, jesus becomes subject and object. since ritualistic sacrifice communicates with a higher power, and jesus being a higher power, it would seem that he is also entity (which would require a new model). however, because he does not sacrifice to or for himself, he is not the entity in question. jesus sacrifices for humankind. entity is again conserved. even if jesus was also entity and fulfilled the reinterpreted sacrificial model, his sacrifice would not be ‘true.’ it involved a choice—he chose!—made with an expected return. mankind’s salvation rendering his sacrifice economic, thus not “true.` * as the central figure of christianity (and the western world by imposition) christ and his passionate selfsacrifice becomes most glorious and idealized. all men may and should aspire to and fail in their aspiration to him. their mimicry by association sanctifies the act. what is the difference between suicide and martyrdom? my teacher, with catholic stitched lips, said suicide is a sin, and jesus and saints are martyrs. meaning, suicide is the choice to end one’s life before one’s godly time, whereas martyrdom is the self-sacrifice for something larger. i don’t see but have gathered this distinction keeps divinity where to them it—and it might—belongs. hark! the end point being that this stance on self-sacrifice makes end-times actually end goal. is this what progress means? *

10 MODERN SACRIFICE

so we walk always on the altar smoking and burning

* can I bum a smoke? (hands one over) do you have a light? (the wheel turns, the lighter flickers, the cigarette lights) thanks. (a deep drag, the red, the fire, the smoke)

! !

!

i know! (all smoke illuminates wounds)

*

11

though the national percentage of people smoking is in decline, in small groups the percentage rises. who would admit they smoke when knowing the consequences. because almost no one who smokes now does not know the consequences. smoke though rotting their container from inside out, lungs rabbit-roasted on a spit they smoke. they smoke. they drip. the smoke which drips signals the wound. cough on it. then get used to it. start to like it. need it. beginning to see ghosts everywhere for the smoke conjures them. lighting a candle conjures ghosts, the smoke drives the danger out with its jaws, drives demons out into the light away from the smoke, replacing the demons you know hide and are hidden in the smoke. take their place. the purpose is secrecy. the movement is sacrifice. “then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you10”

* the motivator and the reward is self-sacrifice

* dinosaurs fell formed the first blood and decomposition turned their blood black rich and thick running in crevasses deep beneath the highs and lows pooling where eyes will never see. then you came and enjoyed the blood more than any four-legged beast or earthworm but more thirsty you drink more you hid jaws at first so it was too late and the black blood won’t stay the pulse points bit will dry up and you will need to find new veins to bit like a horse and bite and suck and stab and rig when you run out of vessels blood junkie who aluminum-canned plastic-wrapped fracked six-loop noosed and quack doctor leech-bled until you drove on blood roads burning blood in cars burning the blood and fumes will burn you up one day you will cry your tears filling my tub with them and bathe the body flood your cities too late the veins will turn red and dusty a desiccated river delta your tears will dry and i will dry and you will die and your bodies will turn the blood black rich and thick and though you call me old the blood will bleed again.

*

is å ô===ô this ô===ô incredible city close ?ô===ô i hope ô===ô å± it’s far away look Ó ô===ô i said ô===ô © i can see the å ô===ô emptiness ô===ô within its walls ô===ô its face ô===ô å± with tears where = Ã ô===ô is this ô===ô city?

10

Matthew 6:6. New International Version.

12 FUTURE

wanting to find a language in between apathy and prophecy in between end-of-the-world complacency and end-time craze i speak of end-goal and so i speak of water because water keeps the fire down

this is how I explained it to them— foreigners come in the rumored land, bright exotic with tigers and demons and pelts and rivers and sea water and honey and bee and cults and god plural—tourists come with that longing for the lost original primitive which now wanders around lost without a map amongst their sprawling brick block buildings—tourists who know how it is to dip a foot into the hotness of the whiteness of a clawed tub—I translated the tide to them— hoping they would see their own body disappear as the water rushed in and around their islands * water is the only way to properly dispose of terror and death. no temple can be built on its resting place. harder to worship if it cannot be located “the body would sink," he wrote. "The bagged body was placed on a white table at the rail of the ship; the table was tipped over to drop the body into the sea. It was so heavy that it dragged the table in with it. As the body sank quickly out of sight, the table bobbed on the surface11"

and so goes animal, so goes earth 11

"'Osama's Body Dropped into Sea with 300 Pounds of Iron Chains." The Times of India. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Mar.

13 SUNDARBANS

in the intertidal zone of great rivers the Sundarbans forest – world’s largest tract of mangrove forest — gasps. MOUTH barely above sea —MOUTH sometimes submerged LIPS shut gulping through hungry NOSTRILS. mangrove trees retain incredible stores of CO2 particles in their muddy TEETH and tides flood the mangrove forest daily, wide ocean pulls in as thin rivers drain out. so mud and sand, threaded with mangrove FINGERS fisted between rock and water, twisted into mud, root ground where only water was — an amphibian HAND tangling with here they do not name the animal prayer. unless to conjure GHOSTS. they hide from the PAWS smoking out its CLAWS with names like “mamu, uncle.

Uncle tiger, lord12” using ash to muzzle JAWS. in fear they sacrifice to one—out of many—goddess for Hindus, saint for Muslims, her HAND just grazes on the animal’s 13 HIDE. named Lady of the Forest she hates seeing BLOOD spilt for her holy name but VEINS break when the veil over her HEAD falls and her EYES sink into mud.

12. Warne, Kennedy. “Mangroves” http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/02/mangroves/warne-text 13. Barnett, Alex. “The Goddess and the Tiger.” Bonbibi is the Hindu goddess of the forest and Muslim saint.

Bonbibi hates for blood to be spilled. When venerating her, the villagers will often consecrate an animal and then set it free in the forest, where probably it will face death in another way.

14 THE ANIMAL

!

*

*

the animal is placed on the altar terrible man-eater waves rushed in and swallowed the animal with water jaws swallowing jaws after the smoke water rushes in the animal is unwilling

*

15 walking through rooms, i remember this the skin. it lay furry on the ground in strips and stripes. the skin is the prize of the hunt, hung on the wall or there underfoot, the skin minus the non-skin. the inside now hollow, it collapses without stuffing. * now we hunt for teeth on the seashore. the teeth of one giant mouth, a bivalval jaw housing tenderizing teeth. our child had warned of mouths sleeping in the mud with one eye open, ready for feet. rumors had spread of mouths beyond imaginable size, swallowing a girl or forests entire. mouths with teeth, incisors long as human arm, i picked up a mouth with the bite long gone and held it to my ear. shining into my ear and walking along the river bank with the light seeds of footsteps. waiting among ruins. turning ear so i can inquire and replies. here a city. here its ruins. here its teeth. we still are unsure as to the sound of the word “here,� which floods over our leaky roofs and the bricks of old places, we have no sense for it, like the marker of the grave in the ground, who really stays here or there in the ground? she held out the jaw to me to listen. i held it to my ear and heard the thing. i wept. i heard them. *

END GOAL

at the climbing altar I laid my body down upon the kitchen table, white paper napkin-ed my hands on my chest waiting for the guests and the cook and the food having waited too long I pricked my finger on the needle and tasted my own drinking for the burning the power and the glory and the kingdom I fell into sleep wide-awake. so swept up in sheets that only a figure showed through the fold only the grey silhouette of my body swaddled in bedclothing becoming a ghost pressed imminent a divine hand lifted us i dropped into myself swish went the water splash said my head

16

* but the question remains in a song that goes

is our self-sacrifice burning bringing drowning fire bringing water an act of love purging terror from the system restoring order? *

! !

*

17 EPILOGUE

tiger color allures / brings a smell that tips the chin up, so drinking follows and then / water drowns / down into the throat up and around / no blood at the wound / not yet at least though soon / blazes in heat and howls in heart and hear / the pain and not pain / understand once they burn blood no more for both the gain and the glory / it will be too late / fangs are law / we are locked in and lower than the day / will not come but water will / blanket mangroves / it will happen again / and again / until our common blood calls between us / a common wound / wounding only tongues spoken above / let us begin by calling / every word we know with every jaw of man

18

I have yet to receive correspondence from you regarding my numerous previous complaints about the same nuisance in question. I sent the first one in 1997, and then every 4 years since.

To resolve the problem, I would appreciate any and all efforts the free the tiger on the other side of the wall. Enclosed are copies of my claims. I look forward to your reply and the resolution of my problem prior to seeking help from a consumer protection agency or the state.

I trust this sufficiently clarifies the situation at hand.

Yours faithfully, **********