……………The sun goes down over a smoky village,
Northern India. A dim ghostly music
…………………………rising from the huts; some lights pop on.
……………The stray dogs that slept all day,
in their fields, on street corners,
…………………………raise their heads, as one.
……………They wake at night and howl and bay,
and fight other dogs for territory.
…………………………1000 years it’s been this way.
……………Stray dogs packs are killing children in Sitapur!
You can read it in The Indian Express. School attendance
…………………………dropped. Police of Uttar Pradesh
……………are called for extra forces. Villagers are
furious. Bearded men bludgeon dogs
…………………………with farm tools, cricket bats. The dogs
……………run away in packs, howling,
out of the village, out of their territories.
…………………………Villagers are killing whole packs of dogs,
……………all the dogs. You can never be too sure.
Do the dogs all have rabies? Yes!
…………………………say the bearded men. Even the pet dogs?
……………Yes! Women in saris hurl pet dogs
over balconies, into the fields.
…………………………The fluffy manicured Chow Chow,
……………bell on its neck; the tiny white Poodle,
nervous as a squirrel. Pet dogs join the street dogs
…………………………running out of the village.
……………Do the bearded men have rabies? They’re so angry.
Does the whole world, with its anger, have rabies?
…………………………Maybe. Rabies: lyssa, hydrophobia,
……………or canine madness, or just plain madness.
A team of expert monkey-catchers is called to catch the dogs.
…………………………They have long poles with nooses.
……………How nimble dogs are, sliding under porches,
hiding in tall grass. A 7-year-old girl gathers mangoes
…………………………in the field beside her house:
……………suddenly the dogs, normal street dogs,
tear her apart, eating her alive!
…………………………All verified in The Indian Express.
……………What do the dogs want? Have we heard
their demands? Villagers on Royal Enfields
…………………………chase dogs down the mountain paths.
……………Villagers drag the tall grass
with fishing nets. Street dogs skitter off,
…………………………tails between legs, pale, ghostly,
……………dextrous skeletons, out of the village.
Bearded men scoop up the puppies in burlap bags,
…………………………raise up the bags, singing ragas,
……………and dunk them in the river.
It’s the only thing to do! Lyssophobia, says The Indian Express,
…………………………is the morbid dread of catching rabies.
……………Or a psychological condition in humans
which mimics rabies. Or a fear of going insane, a fear of disease,
…………………………all fears of all disease.
……………The rage that makes us animals. Lyssa, wolfness,
related to lykos, or wolf. Dogs sun themselves
…………………………in a nearby field. A skinny black mother dog
……………called Indira Ghandi, Dee for short, with tall bat ears,
now very pregnant, licks a canister of ghee
…………………………with her long tongue. From the road
……………an old man with his goats whistles and
the bearded men in kurtas are shouting,
…………………………drifting in packs toward the dog packs.
……………A villager nabs Dee by her hind legs,
another hits her with a shovel, her blood in the mud
…………………………and plastic of the garbage river.
……………Lyssa, the Greeks called Hector’s rage, also meant light.
The Adriatic Sea at dusk,
…………………………the glittering eyes of the mad.
……………As when Hector’s eyes spot Achilles’ shield.
Or Dee noticed a canister
…………………………of ghee in the grass.