大象传媒

Carolyn J. Allen
526 Summer St.
Bridgewater, MA 02324
U. S. A.

My father was a PFC. In the U.S. Army during World War II. He landed at Normandy, served in Belgium, France and finally, Germany. His feet were frozen during the long march through Belgium. He was hospitalized in France for 6 months, went back to battle and was discharged with a 10% disability. I wrote this poem for him because the war lives on in the men who fight it and in those who love them. I hope it will bring healing.

Requiem for Secretariat

It鈥檚 raining at the track today
The horses are streaming muddy water.
In blinders they race round and round.
Prodded by the spur of easy money.
Today is Mother鈥檚 Day.
Daddy, can we go home?
Right after the Daily Double.
Please Daddy, I have homework to do.
You should have brought it with you,
Shouldn鈥檛 she, Abigail?
My mother nods in acquiescence rather than assent.
She does not fight the horses anymore.
Gambling is my father鈥檚 battle.
Today鈥檚 win is tomorrow鈥檚 loss
And nobody ever really breaks even
Except the lady they pray to here
Who kisses your bet or spits it out.
Perhaps I will find her among us mortals.
She will perch upon the shoulder of the winner,
Pin the loser to the ground with her knee on his belly.
Perhaps she is the lady in the yellow culottes,
Who rubs two tickets together, spits on them,
Holds them up to heaven with a prayer
A thousand dollars on the second race
And she is giddy. Here money is peanuts.
I wonder if she is betting the rent.
My Dad is betting our summer vacation.
Maybe our school shoes, too.
I ask him why he keeps right on playing?
Look up Prince Nala. You will find him with Damayante.
I am intrigued by the strange names.
And ask him to tell me the story.
But he wanders off to place his bet.
I look around.
Maybe if I watch closely, I will understand.
Go, Sandy Boy, my father yells.
He has that distant dreamy look.
The horses steal every dream but one.
I forget about Nala in the excitement of the finish.
The lady in the yellow culottes is weeping.
She is out a grand and her husband looks mad.
I wonder where they will live now.
They do not speak. People don鈥檛 talk much here.
They pray and weep, scream cheers and epithets.
They dream of the big win.
But he jackpot is always one bet away.
C鈥檓on, Baby. Hustle up, Lord Jim.
Thatta way, Honey Cup. Dance for me, Lucky Star.
My Dad loves Secretariat.
That horse is a prince, he says.
I think he is a royal stallion, the rich man鈥檚 horse
That poor men bet on.
I am not going to be poor when I grow up.
I will never be a gambler.
I will own a horse just like Secretariat.
I will never be a gambler.
The lady in the yellow culottes is smoking.
She has the dreamy look again.
The sun begins its descent.
Daddy, can we go home now?
Yes, Dear. Soon, Dear, my mother says.
I see her in a boxing ring with Secretariat.
They are fighting for the Triple Crown.
My mother collapses exhausted.
Secretariat whinnies and throws water in her face.
The crown is placed on his head. My mother bows.
The stands are hush, the races are over.
Daddy won but not big enough.
His winnings buy us dinner.
At the table my father talks about the races,.
My mother interrupts and asks him
If he remembers a poem about an owl and a pussycat.
He flawlessly recites all the verses.
Then he wows us with 鈥淥nce more unto the breach鈥�
From Shakespeare and 鈥淎bou Ben Adem鈥� by Leigh Hunt.
鈥淲rite me as one who loves his fellow men,鈥� Ben Adhem said.鈥�
I want to be like Ben Adhem, care for people.
If there is a God, does he come to the racetrack?
Are he and the lady in cahoots?
I wonder if God will be offended.
The next day I ask my teacher about Nala and Damayante,
Dama, who? She asks, then shakes her hand for me to go away.

II
When someone dies the grieved don鈥檛 always weep.
There is a carved wood box in his top dresser drawer.
A lock has barred me from it all these years.
After the funeral I open it and out fall all his treasures.
There are the programs from The Senior Follies.
I see him dancing around the kitchen rehearsing Broadway ballads
In his blue bathrobe, the one with the nicotine stain on the pocket.
What do you think, he asks with a shuffle step.
鈥淒on鈥檛 throw bouquets at me鈥eople will say we鈥檙e in love,鈥� .
His spirit washes over me.
I go to the library in search of consolation.
Wedged between two novels,
I find the Mahabharata, a poem of India,
The longest poem ever written
I open the book at random to the story of Nala and Damayante.
Prince Nala loved the beautiful Damayante, the story begins.
To woo her he sent a talking goose so charming that
She chose him as husband though the gods had wooed her.
They lived happily for 12 years.
Then the Goddess Kali entered Nala
And he began to play at dice.
He lost the kingdom but refused to wager his wife.
Penniless, they wandered through the forest.
When two birds stole his clothes
He stripped off his wife鈥檚 dress as she lay sleeping;
Ripped it in half, covered himself and ran away.
She wandered from village to village, half naked
For many years until Nala was freed from Kali鈥檚 power.
Nala reclaimed his kingdom. Damayante ruled at his side.
So? I still don鈥檛 get it.
Perusing the appendix I learn that Kali is chaos.
She is the goddess of destruction, trauma and war.
World War II was my father鈥檚 Kali.
He saw the concentration camps in all their horror.
And then he saw the Allied troops raping the women of Berlin.
War leaves no good guys, he said
Kali is the mother of trauma.
Trauma generates a thousand compulsions.
Gambling was the compulsion that lived at our house.
My father lived but not to tell the story.
I tell it now that you may see
And hear what he told me.
There is no victory.

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