THE EPIC OF SENGE...................................................................................................................................JOHN WALL BARGER

The Epic of Senge

Poem by John Wall Barger

We moved to Philadelphia from an Indian village & shipped our big old tomcat, Senge. We tried to keep him inside our row house, tempting him with toys & snacks, but he longed for village life: fighting cats, hunting rats, walking the roofs of the huts. He cried his lungs out: “Freedom!” he cried. “Liberty!” Sleepless, defeated, we opened the door: Senge padded out in triumph. He walked the sidewalks of West Philly, manifesting all the lavish beauty & violence of the village. Every day he got lost. Today Tiina & I comb the misty late-summer streets, searching. Tiina—whose love for that cat is fugitive & powerful—is so worried she can’t talk. As we step into Clark Park I joke, “Maybe he caught a boat back to India!” She emits a small, dry laugh. We scan the park. Dogs: fourteen. Cats: zero. But it’s nice. We sit in the damp grass. Someone strums a woozy guitar. Soft, distant singing. The sky, opening. Under a maple tree: a pile, a form, it is a body, an opossum. Twisted, seeping, torn like a bag of rice. I say nothing. Everything is wet. Record rain this year. Even the kindness hovering in the high branches is wet, glittering, pretty. Almost unbearable. And familiar. The peaceful men playing chess on fold-out tables. The children blowing bubbles of light. Like attending a warmhearted funeral, which just happens to be your own.