*RENNEN ODER LAUFEN - DAS IST HIER DIE FRAGE
Verfasst: Di 16. Mai 2017, 15:37
Übersetzung im Anhang
TO RACE OR TO RUN?—THAT IS THE QUESTION
It comes up very often in discussions about greyhounds. It’s a fair question.
There is something eternal and iambic in the apparitional silhouette of a greyhound, cantering freely across a dew-kissed meadow, those droplets of dawn, sprayed, gilded by the awakening sunrays, with each muted footfall. It is an imagic prayer, the poets of nature whisper, to grace itself.
In our world of cyber-gadgetry, of intimidating, intuitive automobiles, and of post-modern conveniences to facilitate just about every bothersome chore we might be bound to endure, it is more than remarkable that we can possess a living creature even more perfectly formed, to do precisely what it was meant to.
Greyhounds are like that. They race into our lives, and we are never the same again. There is an ethereal kinesis and manner to them, that at once addicts, enchants and mystifies--like the second glance of love at first sight, or a song faintly heard on the breath of a breeze, echoing in the cavern of a footbridge, lyrics lost among the river rushes.
So why do these lovely and beguiling beings engender so much controversy?
The whims of serendipity have never defined our greyhounds. They are purposeful things. Aerodynamic and streamlined, there is no thought to artistic license in their design. They have emerged from the same ooze as we, yet look at them—a microcosm of the Darwinian epic, on fast-forward.
There are volumes of information available on the internet, most of it misguided or just plain wrong, speculating upon the lives of contemporary greyhounds, and even upon their origins. From the unlikely whimsy of greyhounds who sat at the throne of Pharaoh, to the dark and conspiratorial narrative of the alleged greyhound death cult, commonly known as greyhound racing, there are few breeds of dogs which have been the subject of more disinformation and misunderstanding.
On the other hand, understanding is underrated. Of course, greyhounds love to run. They are living, breathing monuments to the joy of their own velocity and disdain of gravity.
But for the greyhound we know, there are moré deeply faceted dimensions. He was forged on the green fields of Altcar, coursing after hares so swift and nimble, that they might run him right off his legs, without so much as breaking a sweat, had he not been the apex predator.
He was then recast by the racetrack, in the chaos of the maddening pack, careening around sharp turns at speeds so daring that it steeled him, and made him bold and tenacious, to race through the pangs of fatigue and to welcome the challenge of any so brazen as to look him in the eye. He is the offspring of those who demanded to lead the pack, and who could accept nothing less, as much as bone and muscle, lung, heart and will might tolerate.
That is his inheritance, his bequest, and his legacy--to lead the pack.
It is ever so much more than simply running.
Copyright, 2015
D.McKeon
TO RACE OR TO RUN?—THAT IS THE QUESTION
It comes up very often in discussions about greyhounds. It’s a fair question.
There is something eternal and iambic in the apparitional silhouette of a greyhound, cantering freely across a dew-kissed meadow, those droplets of dawn, sprayed, gilded by the awakening sunrays, with each muted footfall. It is an imagic prayer, the poets of nature whisper, to grace itself.
In our world of cyber-gadgetry, of intimidating, intuitive automobiles, and of post-modern conveniences to facilitate just about every bothersome chore we might be bound to endure, it is more than remarkable that we can possess a living creature even more perfectly formed, to do precisely what it was meant to.
Greyhounds are like that. They race into our lives, and we are never the same again. There is an ethereal kinesis and manner to them, that at once addicts, enchants and mystifies--like the second glance of love at first sight, or a song faintly heard on the breath of a breeze, echoing in the cavern of a footbridge, lyrics lost among the river rushes.
So why do these lovely and beguiling beings engender so much controversy?
The whims of serendipity have never defined our greyhounds. They are purposeful things. Aerodynamic and streamlined, there is no thought to artistic license in their design. They have emerged from the same ooze as we, yet look at them—a microcosm of the Darwinian epic, on fast-forward.
There are volumes of information available on the internet, most of it misguided or just plain wrong, speculating upon the lives of contemporary greyhounds, and even upon their origins. From the unlikely whimsy of greyhounds who sat at the throne of Pharaoh, to the dark and conspiratorial narrative of the alleged greyhound death cult, commonly known as greyhound racing, there are few breeds of dogs which have been the subject of more disinformation and misunderstanding.
On the other hand, understanding is underrated. Of course, greyhounds love to run. They are living, breathing monuments to the joy of their own velocity and disdain of gravity.
But for the greyhound we know, there are moré deeply faceted dimensions. He was forged on the green fields of Altcar, coursing after hares so swift and nimble, that they might run him right off his legs, without so much as breaking a sweat, had he not been the apex predator.
He was then recast by the racetrack, in the chaos of the maddening pack, careening around sharp turns at speeds so daring that it steeled him, and made him bold and tenacious, to race through the pangs of fatigue and to welcome the challenge of any so brazen as to look him in the eye. He is the offspring of those who demanded to lead the pack, and who could accept nothing less, as much as bone and muscle, lung, heart and will might tolerate.
That is his inheritance, his bequest, and his legacy--to lead the pack.
It is ever so much more than simply running.
Copyright, 2015
D.McKeon