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Last Visit to the Beach

a sestina

The beach, untouched by Time throughout the years
As millions of waves washed from the sea,
As Time transformed me, now no more a boy,
Where I would walk each season on that sand,
Each decade by my side a different dog,
Still looks the same as we make tracks together.

The houses on the cliffs still stand together;
The restroom hut’s unchanged in thirty years,
But smaller since I went with my first dog.
The little village by the wind-swept sea
Stands still, unlike an hourglass’s sand;
It’s I who changed since I was just a boy.

My mother took me as a little boy
To this same beach, and here we’d play together,
And then she’d read a novel on the sand
For well-earned rest back in those early years.
She never worried; she could always see
Me watched and herded by my boyhood dog.

Some years went by; I had another dog.
The first would know me only as a boy;
The second one recoiled from the sea.
The people who’d come here with me together
Had slowly disappeared throughout the years—
The sea had washed their footprints off the sand.

Now, after thirty years, I cross the sand
And pass the people, with another dog.
It’s sad to climb the crags of early years—
Too much departed since I was a boy.
No humans with me walk the sands together.
The crowd recedes; just me, him, God, and sea.

There’s nothing left for me here by the sea
Except to walk more dogs upon the sand—
The people here and I don’t go together.
The only friend still with me is my dog.
I don’t like what they taught me as a boy—
I can’t turn back from truth I’ve learned these years.

I see the sea the last time with my dog;
I’ll leave the sands I ambled as a boy
To find a wife, for many years together.

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Domestication

Japheth (JAY-feth): Noah’s son, ancestor of Europeans
and other northern peoples who domesticated dogs

Some decades after Noah’s Flood,
Some wolves smelled boiling beef and blood
Over fire in Japheth’s hearth.
The wolves slinked by around his garth,
Sitting patiently for meat—
A novelty: a well-cooked treat.

The children called the wolves by whistle,
Tossed them dirty guts and gristle.
Japheth’s wife threw boiled bones,
No good for humans, hard as stones,
Out the windows, on the grass,
Devoured by the lupine mass.

When the wolves kept coming back
For a new, delicious snack,
Sitting down beside the shrubs,
Japheth took their sweetest cubs,
Gave his children these as pets,
And kept the best as breeding sets.

Today, across the great, wide waters,
A lot of Japheth’s distant daughters,
Taught to be career-ambitious,
Vent suppressed maternal wishes
Through wolves’ descendants’ shame and dolors
By pushing them in human strollers.

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Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives in the American Heartland.  His poetry has been published in Snakeskin, The Lyric, Sparks of Calliope, Westward Quarterly, Atop the Cliffs, Our Day’s Encounter, The Creativity Webzine, Verse Virtual, and The Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism and The Creativity Webzine.

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16 Responses

  2. Jeremiah Johnson

    Again, great “didn’t see that coming” ending on Domestication. And I just like the acoustics on “Japheth’s distant daughters.”

    On another note, you may have read this poem before, but I couldn’t read your first poem without this classic coming to mind:

    https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/dogs-and-weather

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Jeremiah. I often aim for that kind of effect by adding alliteration, internal rhyme, etc., where it won’t distract from the meaning, and I thought of the idea for “Domestication” when I saw one of those “distant daughters” I describe and wondered what those wolves would have thought of their descendants being forced into the role of ersatz human babies.

      I hadn’t seen “Dogs and Weather;” thank you for that one.

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    Wolves and dogs have precisely the same genetics, so it is certain that we humans domesticated them and tinkered with their breeding to produce the multiplicity of canine types that exist today. People treating dogs like infants, and pushing them around in baby strollers, is so utterly degrading that it staggers belief.

    The sestina, on the other hand, paints a nostalgic but somewhat sad picture of a proper human-dog relationship, and the speaker’s voice at the end yearns for another type of natural linkage: marriage.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      It really is degrading, isn’t it? I think if those wolves had known their descendants would be treated like that, they would have steered clear of Japheth’s house.

      You’ve understood the point of “Last Visit to the Beach” quite well.

      Reply
  4. Brian A. Yapko

    These are both very accomplished poems, Josh, with interesting themes. The sestina is not a form I’ve attempted – I would have a difficult time using the repeating words multiple times and finding fresh meaning. You achieve this in a poem that is sad, nostalgic and ultimately reflective on relationships other than just you and your various dogs. As you present it, the sestina does have a way of suggesting seasonal and cyclic similarities and changes.

    I especially liked “Domestication.” You treat the subject of wolves being domesticated into pets in a very interesting and entertaining way. I really got into the discussion of the domestication itself and loved the first three stanzas. The fourth stanza, however, felt to me like a different poem. You turn your focus from that very interesting process of domestication to the subject of women’s thwarted maternalism. Feel free to disagree with me, but I’m not sure it was necessary to unexpectedly inject this contemporary subject into a poem otherwise set in ancient times. I felt like it broke the spell you had woven. I would have preferred to see you stay in period without the modern observation. Or, even better, found a way to make the observation within the context of the period you had previously set the poem rather than fast-forward 5000 years. That being said, I still think this is an enjoyable poem with a pointed message. Good work!

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Brian. I’ve tried sestinas before, but this is the first one good enough to send here. Mostly, they ended up being too long and I had to cut them to have four end-words instead of six. The dog from the later stanzas died a year ago, and I had to write this in preparation of bringing home his successor.

      I’m glad you liked “Domestication” overall, despite what you didn’t like about it. I can see why you would have preferred an ending closer to the beginning, but as I see it, the story of canine domestication has never really ended, as dogs have been part of our lives ever since. It’s been a big hit at poetry readings, so I guess it’s a matter of personal taste.

      As I mentioned in other comments, I wrote it because I saw such a sight and thought about the contrast with the world’s first dogs. They’ve given us so much throughout history, and yet, we repay them by subjecting them to all kinds of indignities, of which being made to play-act as human babies is merely the most public. Japheth’s immediate daughters, having many children of their own, would have found it quite a foreign concept.

      To be fair, I understand why some women do this; what Andrew Isker so aptly calls “Trashworld” (in his book The Boniface Option) leaves many with few options. Indeed, that’s part of the point: like the wolves at Japheth’s house, we humans fell for Trashworld’s Pied-Piper music because we liked the easy-to-get food, and as a direct result, we as a species have been effectively domesticated like dogs; we could no more survive in the wild than could a pampered Chihuahua. The woman who pushes a dog in a stroller is herself already subjected to the same indignity of infantilization as the dog by being pushed away from motherhood. Pets and their owners resemble each other in more ways than one.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        I think connecting the early domestication of wolves with their later modern degradation is a good idea, and you are not the first writer to bring the subject up.

        H.H. Munro (“Saki”), in his early twentieth century novel “When William Came,” has a scene where during a variety entertainment in London trained wolves are forced to ride tricycles, while dressed in silly clown suits. Munro comments contemptuously on this absurdity, speaking of the sheer degradation of these proud animals to provide fatuous entertainment.

        Munro frequently uses animals in his writings as a counterpoint to the stupidity of humans who have been infected with idiotic and trendy left-liberal ideas.

  5. Cheryl Corey

    In “Domestication”, I found your rhymes of “hearth” and “garth” (a new word for me), “whistle” and “gristle” both interesting and pleasant. I have to concur with Brian’s analysis, however, regarding the last stanza.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Cheryl. I’m glad you like the rhymes. As for the last stanza, see my reply to Brian.

      Reply
  6. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Josh, the sestina is a challenging form. It’s hard to keep up the repetition without the repeating words sounding forced. You have put my bêtes noire of a form to excellent use in ‘Last Visit to the Beach’.

    I like the matter-of-fact musings that (for me) conjure an air of loneliness in their nostalgia and wisdom. Unlike the beach the narrator has changed… and learned. Your words resonate. They remind me that revisiting the past isn’t always a pleasurable experience I particularly like: “The people here and I don’t go together. / The only friend still with me is my dog. / I don’t like what they taught me as a boy…”. They prick my eyes with tears and remind me of how impressionable and trusting children are… this day and age takes full advantage of their vulnerability. Josh, your sestina is a success!

    I like the poetic history lesson in “Domestication” – it captured my imagination with vibrant images that bring the origin of our cute pets into full, technicolor view. I have read some of the conversation on the closing stanza. I believe you make a good point. I think many young women gear their natural maternal instincts towards babying pets because modern society has shaped it that way. Family life is frowned upon. Women are made to feel guilty if they choose to have children… God forbid more than one… what will that do to the ailing planet?! And don’t forget rare toads, are more important than people’s needs. Sadly, many young couples are forced to work long hours to pay a mortgage and feel they can’t afford to have children, with time and money being the main factors. I think your last verse would serve well as the opening stanza of a new poem. Thank you for these thought-provoking pieces… and (most of all) thank you for lighting a tiny ember of desire to write a sestina of my own!

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you Susan! Yes, the sestina is really challenging for the reasons you describe. I’m glad I was able to make enough of an impression to prick your eyes with tears… I don’t like to revisit the past, either (except for writing poems about it; that seems to help). I’d love to see a sestina of yours; I bet you could do that form justice like no one else!

      What an interesting idea, starting a new poem with the last stanza of “Domestication!” I should write a poem about the points I made discussing that stanza. It’s true: the modern world is constructed to destroy everything a sane person holds dear. That’s why I keep it at arm’s length as much as I can get away with.

      Reply
  7. C.B. Anderson

    The Dog Star (Sirius in Canis Major) hangs brightly in my southern sky these nights.

    Reply

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