Unnamed Nureongi Waiting on Marado Island
Animal Rights Poetry By Lynne Goldsmith From All-Creatures.org

He lives alone on jagged mudrock,
dog ears back, paw pads cut by sharp terrain
with waves crashing to cold rain pummeling
the edge of sweeping him into icy waters,
the same powerful expanse
that carried away the old couple he loved
by ferry’s shuttling on a clear day.

Heat, snow, monsoons,
human and animal assaults,
Nureongi faces the vastness
of water he cannot cross,
the Yellow Sea of “peace zone”
meeting East China Sea.

He listens for his people’s voices,
relentlessly checks for signs in the briny air
of any boat returning the ones he loves
from a mainland he cannot see, cannot know.

Grief tucks him in against basalt shifts.
He clings to crevices,
head lifted to gusts of wind
that he forces himself to face…

A villager sets out food on volcanic rock
while keeping a safe distance. Another
stranger adds a bowl of water.

One day, more people move in closer
for delivering the tranquilizer
to help prepare for medicinal attention.

Shot in the flank,
Nureongi stumbles,
returns to the abandoned shack
that was his to share
on island of ninety people.

Eyes close to the drugging,
reviving forever remembrances
of the man and woman who patted his head,
who fed him fresh fish at fireside daily.

He crumples down on dead grass,
old doghouse nearby,
sacred ground
he’s known and loved for so long.

He will later wake to sedative wearing off

to some revived loyalty,
the touch of loving hands
indoors somewhere unfamiliar.

And out of conscious mourning

returned like waves at low tide,
relentless pains he’s carried will begin
to recede to churning

new hope rising.

©Lynne Goldsmith, 2018

Image from rawpixel.com / Freepik