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| Patrick Barrett |
The Eternal Wait of the Saint Bernard
A rat is creating a ruckus in the attic. Is the cat
on the prowl?
It wonders, blundering into the resident cat,
almost paralytic,
shambling on unsteady feet. And a dog
waiting- waiting- waiting...
Sniffer, they called him—a tiny Saint Bernard.
He moves around, grimly trying to hunt for that
lost fragrance.
Near the closet, he sniffs something.
His eyes light up, and his tail wags.
The familiar fragrance. Ah!
The breeze blows.
The windows rattle.
The closet door swings open.
In a flurry of excitement,
Sniffer dashes to sniff the dress of his mistress
with golden tresses.
There is no mistress!
Wasn't she always there singing a melodious song?
But that was before the war. The notes of
the song remain.
He groans, moaning for bones.
Where did the mistress keep the bones meant for him?
The autumnal leaves keep falling.
Appalled, he glimpses a painting on the wall.
Young Woman, playing Violin, by Henry Matisse.
Was his beautiful mistress playing the violin?
Then, he saw Gustav Klimt's painting,
Mother with Children.
Growing wistful, with canine juvenility,
he climbed up the sofa,
creeping into the picture frame,
naively believing that he had been painted
into the painting.
The Saint Bernard felt mollycoddled, flanked
by two toddlers.
But the two toddlers of the family were
nowhere to be seen.
And the father was now a has-been!
Minimalism had suddenly become a thing in Sniffer's life.
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| Dr. Santosh Bakaya |
