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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 1
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 1 |
Please, I would like to understand the meaning of the expressions GONE SPOOR and GONE SCAT from the following Gary's Lawless poem:
I will be waiting for someone's help. Tks a lot....
Treat each bear as the last bear.
Each wolf the last, each caribou.
Each track the last track.
Gone spoor, gone scat.
There are no more deertrails,
no more flyways.
Treat each animal as sacred,
each minute our last.
Ghost hooves. Ghost skulls.
Death rattles and
dry bones.
Each bear walking alone
in warm night air.
by Gary Lawless
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529
veteran
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veteran
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529 |
It means exactly what it says, gia; no more tell-tell droppings, no more smelly trails to follow.
Conclusion: Think, Ghost Riders in the Sky.
The effect: the line by line disappearance of all trace aspects of these wild creatures helps empathize the irrevokable nature of their disappearance and underlines the diminished state of our world should they be lost.
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Joined: Jun 2006
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
I had to look it up though I got the approx meaning,
scat verb.
to go off hastily
spoor noun
a track or trail, esp. that of a wild animal pursued as game.
Wasn't a scat a little fish too. Didn't someone once say: "ever say scat to a cat?" A hasty run, a fish, an animal dropping, what more surprises?
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Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,290 |
to go off hastilyNot that scat, BranShea, but the noun scat.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What he's saying, Milo, is when the animal is gone, so are its signs.
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529
veteran
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veteran
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 1,529 |
What he's saying, Milo, is when the animal is gone, so are its signs. No Faldage, that is not what he is saying. He is saying what I said he is saying. Your quick quip is the stuff of boors and baseball players. 
Last edited by themilum; 11/22/2007 8:46 PM.
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 956
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 956 |
I think this means the trails and any trace of a pursued animal will no longer exist if we keep hunting and killing all of the animals willy nilly.
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Joined: Jun 2006
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh là là , you mean you can't say f.i.:
'where's the scat?'
'the scat has gone scat?
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Joined: Aug 2005
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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you mean you can't say f.i.I say it all the time, but I pronounce it if. The Scatman's cat scats. Simper if.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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What he's saying, Milo, is when the animal is gone, so are its signs. No Faldage, that is not what he is saying. He is saying what I said he is saying. Your quick quip is the stuff of boors and baseball players. Oopsies. My bad. I mistook the Thanksgiving turkey for the Christmas turkey, thinking somehow that you had posed the original question asking what it meant. Your answer is definitely closer to the poetic truth.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
For heaven's sake, you-all! Gia, if you're not totally confused having read this far, here, Sweetie: I'm sure you know that animals leave droppings. Spoor and scat are words (not bad ones) for these droppings. The poet did two things in that sentence: he changed the word order, and left out the verbs. In prose, the sentence would read something like this: "the spoor is (or will be) gone; the scat is (or will be) gone". And I think, from the lines above that one, we might safely assume that he meant ALL of it is gone.
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