I Have A Friend In Virginia Who Is Talking To His Chihuahua Named Silver, Poem by RIC BASTASA

I am healed.
i have a friend in virginia who is talking to his chihuahua
named Silver,

do not ask me, of course, he is lonely, and Tolstoy has described it once
when the only boy of the horse driver died in an accident one winter time
and he had a hard time accepting the loss, and lamented such fact that
he wanted to talk to anybody but then no one is there to listen, the snow
fell heavily, and the whole world is one thick covered sediment where
indifference was so thick that no empathy was possible to penetrate it.

this friend has white hair, wears thick glasses, and i haven't seen him reading
a book, but he has his wine, and TV, and some friends to see on some special
weekends,

he walks with his dog, and has a one way conversation with him because the
dog is not talking back


this i can say, i can relate, as i too, talk to the car when i drive long distance
just to divert my attention from what is found in the house, empty chairs,
milk boxes, medicine capsules, celery and lettuce and tomato salad on the
dining table inside a white porcelain plate, the scent of black pepper and
olive oil, turmeric and ginger juice for my morning ritual,

my wife has five dogs, which make us a big crowd in the house, but for one thing
i never bother talking to any one of them which has become a lot of noise for me

i love white cats but all these dogs drive them away. I like to go to the mountain
where Papa planted some trees surrounding an old cottage. No one stays there
because of the bandits who killed our caretaker. They cut his penis and hanged
it on one of the beams of the old house. He was beheaded. There was hatred for
a very uncertain reason. The man was very old, he had ten grandchildren. They all
left the land.

i talk to my table when i am left alone in my office. I talk to the trees when i take
a walk on early mornings where i can fill my lungs with fresh air.

Talking to something inanimate is not uncommon. I remember this old man too in
Fiddler on the Roof.

i guess my friend who is childless like me who works as caregiver in the U.S. of A
is just coping up. Boredom is dangerous. Perhaps if he does not talk to his dog, or me
talking to a chair, the possibility that the Demons of our Minds will begin talking to us,
is not remote.

But there is one thing that i like to share. I was in the hospital for five days, isolated,
and drugged to sleep by my doctor, and then i still remember, i held the rosary, and
i begin talking to God, not the chair, not the table, not the bulb.

Whatever that is, call it a miracle. I am healed.