Dog Blessings

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by June Cotner


  we have longed to roll in it,

  as the black dog does now,

  four legs flailing at air, tongue lolling,

  head dancing side to side,

  all the full-out running and leaping

  abandoned to this?

  CB Follett

  Mother of Dog

  I want to buy him

  a lunch pail,

  notebook paper,

  pencils, and

  some spiffy kid clothes.

  Instead I buy him a T-shirt that says

  RESPECT THE NOSE.

  I’ll teach him the new math,

  the old rules for playing with others.

  He’ll be the envy

  of all the mothers.

  He won’t stick chewing gum under his desk.

  He won’t pass notes in class.

  He might eat his homework.

  For him, life is recess.

  Kelly Cherry

  At Limantour Beach

  The old dog celebrates.

  Sniffs high. Races to the water

  and runs a tight circle in the shallows,

  two, three, and then another.

  She lowers her shoulder

  to an Irish green swatch of sea lettuce.

  She will roll in it, if she can,

  if we let her, and wear it

  as a badge of this day.

  A day she always dreams of, by the fire,

  legs churning on the rug—a beach day.

  She can never get enough. Every beach

  is another notch in her dreamtime.

  She selects a rock, smoothed and oval,

  carries it dangling from her mouth

  like a talisman.

  It is a digging rock. She drops it.

  Chases it with her paws, poking her nose

  in to scent its trail.

  Her gray muzzle is thick with sand,

  her legs, and around her eyes.

  Her tongue is sandpaper, coarse grit.

  By the third hole, she must sink to rest

  every eight paw strokes, or so,

  haunches perched on the slag of her own mining.

  We spend the whole day at the beach,

  marking the water’s edge with a long line

  of holes and heaps.

  Tonight, while she runs

  before the fire, the tide will rise

  and replace all her divots.

  CB Follett

  When Dogs Go Astray

  Where are you tonight? Chasing night critters

  in the woods, eating food left on a patio

  for felines on the lam, sleeping on a stranger’s

  patio cushions? I find comfort only

  in knowing that you are together, my phone number

  woven into your collars. I’m puzzled. How did

  you get out of our fenced backyard? Did

  some workman checking phone or cable lines leave

  the gate ajar, just enough for you to make a break

  for it when he wasn’t looking? O Bartleby!

  O Melville! Why couldn’t you have been content

  to smell unfamiliar shoes, to accept a pat on the head

  or to protect our yard from an intruder. You’re not

  West Highland Terriers for nothing, born to hunt,

  born to follow rabbits and rodents to their secure dens,

  oblivious to your own needs in the heat

  of the hunt. I have to believe you’ll turn up

  on someone’s back step, begging to come inside

  a stranger’s house. Please choose a dog lover who

  won’t keep you from those who wait for your call.

  Rosanne Osborne

  Dog Running with His Man

  For the sleek golden retriever, it is relief,

  this bounding along the shore with his man.

  Most of the time, it is all he can do to keep

  his nerves within his skin, being assaulted

  as he is every second of his life with

  gorgeous smells, a constant heady flooding

  from the world. It rushes at his too-keen nose:

  sea salt, dead fish, rich green weeds

  left behind by fingers of tide.

  So much! The tingling edges of pine forest,

  urines sprayed on every tree, sweet

  sting of dung, bird tracks and tracks of other dogs

  pressed lightly in wet sand, a bit of salami

  to the left, dropped from a picnic, faint wood smoke

  from a distant bonfire, and oh, the high he gets

  from a whiff of female canine musk. Impossible

  to know what to do with such happiness,

  what he perpetually wants but can barely bear.

  How it propels his fast, muscled flanks,

  makes his ribs heave, his tongue pant.

  At the end of the run, the man bends down,

  offers a good boy, pats the young dog, his simple

  loyal companion, never knowing

  all that he carries, all that he craves.

  Joanne Esser

  Daisy

  She has not

  turned Lassie/Rin Tin Tin

  to save us from

  certain death.

  She’s never been featured

  on Animal Miracles

  or the evening news

  for rescuing a child from a fire,

  preventing a car crash, or

  running impossible miles

  to tell some former owner

  that he is in trouble

  or to ask why he abandoned her.

  She has never

  collared a criminal,

  although she’s spent time in a cell

  for the sin of being homeless—

  a menace to the public,

  running at large,

  begging and unruly,

  matted hair dragging from her back legs,

  beard as wild as an Old Testament prophet’s.

  Sentenced to death at the county shelter,

  she was reborn, got a second chance

  to visit wild places

  and roll in piles of leaves,

  discover new scents on wooded hikes,

  and occasionally get into the trash

  because everybody’s entitled

  to a little backsliding

  now and then.

  Karen R. Porter

  Outside, Wanting In

  His paw a blur of motion

  scratching on the screen.

  Outside, wanting in.

  Door opened, he bounds

  across the room, tail beating greetings,

  nuzzling us, tongue dangling,

  circles twice, thuds to the floor

  at our feet, sighs, relaxes content.

  Until . . .

  a vagrant squirrel hurls insults from the oak

  or a supercilious cat twitches right across

  the lawn which belongs to him,

  or a mysterious shadow slants

  across the porch perhaps signaling danger.

  At once he’s up again, barking,

  crashing pell-mell to the door, pawing,

  glancing imploringly over his shoulder.

  Inside, wanting out.

  SUZANNE C. COLE

  When Opportunity Knocks

  I was doing some spring clean-up in my front yard under the supervision of my border collie Sneeks when my neighbor pulled up in her driveway and began unloading groceries from the rear seat of her vehicle. Burdened with one load, the neighbor
headed toward her house, leaving the rear driver’s side door of her vehicle wide open.

  Sneeks took this as an invitation and darted toward the car, ignoring my frantic calls. I raced off in pursuit, visualizing torn grocery bags and fresh produce strewn across the neighbor’s yard. To my surprise, Sneeks simply leaped into the back seat, ignoring the groceries and sat quietly, on her best behavior.

  I laughed when I realized her motivation—she was hoping to go for a car ride!

  Lisa Timpf

  Sweeter Than Honey

  Our dog has developed an addiction

  to paper. It started innocently enough with

  the dirty tissue a woman walking just ahead of us

  accidentally dropped in his path one day

  much to his delight. Not long after this,

  he discovered dinner napkins, toilet paper rolls,

  and book jackets. Most recently, I caught him

  nosing around in our green clay pitcher that

  used to contain all one hundred and fifty psalms,

  typed up and individually folded like so many

  fortunes, waiting to be read. One by one

  he is making his way through the songs of thanksgiving,

  prayers of lament, and hymns of coronation.

  Always careful to leave enough time

  for three daily naps, a chew on his bone,

  and the occasional bark at our neighbor’s daring cat.

  How sweet are your words to my taste, O God, sweeter

  than honey to my mouth. To which I say: A-hem.

  Lisa Dordal

  The Science of Faith

  Every day except Sunday for five years

  Sal tossed my dog a treat as he delivered our mail.

  Then he was promoted to a desk job.

  It’s been months since Sal delivered

  but when the dog hears the little white truck

  coming up the rise, she stills runs to the mailbox.

  There she waits as the truck drives to the end

  of the road and turns around, the white tip

  of her tail whipping the air faster and faster

  as it comes back her way, her whole body

  wiggling with joy when the mailman stops,

  sticks a handful of mail in the box, then

  nothing.

  The tail slows to a sway,

  slows even more as the truck pulls away.

  There she stands

  head turned to the empty road

  tail still as the pendulum of an unwound clock.

  My husband calls it operant conditioning.

  I say it’s the science of faith,

  hope stirred by memory and desire.

  Patti Tana

  Lost Dog

  It’s just getting dark, fog drifting in,

  damp grasses fragrant with anise and mint,

  and though I call his name

  until my voice cracks,

  there’s no faint tinkling

  of tag against collar, no sleek

  black silhouette with tall ears rushing

  toward me through the wild radish.

  As it turns out, he’s trotted home,

  tracing the route of his trusty urine.

  Now he sprawls on the deep red rug, not dead,

  not stolen by a car on West Cliff Drive.

  Every time I look at him, the wide head

  resting on outstretched paws,

  joy does another lap around the racetrack

  of my heart. Even in sleep

  when I turn over to ease my bad hip,

  I’m suffused with contentment.

  If I could lose him like this every day

  I’d be the happiest woman alive.

  Ellen Bass

  Unleashed

  Oh you are a beautiful flash of purpose

  as you race toward the geese,

  scattering them, every one. The wide

  arc of their furious flapping, their loud

  squawking, their berating, their clamorous

  lifting is like great bells of hammered brass

  ringing out in the Church of Brave Terriers

  on The Day of Infinite Bones. And you,

  my brown and white bullet burning with joy,

  you are magnificent as a ringer of bells.

  Please, allow me to be your student,

  let me learn to be as purely alive as you.

  Ginny Lowe Connors

  Dog Outside a Grocery on Broadway

  It was how he waited

  how he waited where somebody told him to wait

  how he paced outside the grocery store

  how he tugged on the leash tied to the signpost

  how he looked at the man coming out of the store

  how he looked at the glass door swinging shut

  how he looked at the man tearing cellophane off a pack of cigarettes

  how he looked at the cellophane falling on the sidewalk

  how he looked at the girl stuffing a red purse in her pocket

  how he looked at the old lady opening an umbrella at the crosswalk

  how he looked at the boy who looked at him through the window of a bus

  how he looked at the bus turning the corner out of view

  how he sat down on the sidewalk and got up again

  how he pushed his nose against the glass door

  how he scratched behind his ear

  how he waited

  Joan I. Siegel

  Reflections on a Dog’s World

  Scratch a dog and you’ll find a permanent job.

  Franklin P. Jones

  You can’t keep a good man down—or an overly affectionate dog.

  Author unknown

  The dog was created especially for children.

  He is the god of frolic.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  To err is human,

  To forgive, canine.

  Author unknown

  Puppy Love

  Happiness is a warm puppy.

  Charles M. Schulz

  There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.

  Ben Williams

  Whoever said you can’t buy

  happiness forgot little puppies.

  Gene Hill

  Puppy Dog Welcome

  Bunny-hop gallop,

  with dance-happy eyes,

  Fly-swatting tail,

  with glad-you’re-home smiles,

  Snort-like greetings,

  with padded-paw embrace,

  Slobber-lick kisses

  planted all over your face.

  Joan Marie Arbogast

  Puppy Days

  Bless this frisky puppy

  Who’s into everything

  His playful fresh behavior

  Is like a day in spring

  Remind me to be patient

  When he’s chewed another book

  Or races through the living room

  With a newly laundered sock

  He loves without condition

  Gives me kisses every day

  And greets me with a wagging tail

  After I have been away

  Like any other baby

  He needs a lot of rest

  When he falls asleep curled next to me

  I know that I am blessed

  Louise Webster

  Higher Learning

  I put him out four times this morning,

  let him fetch the paper, walked him

  round the block, but still the puppy

  peed twice on the kitchen fl
oor—

  great, spreading puddles of gold

  that soaked into the doormat.

  He looks at me with the eyes

  of an assistant professor up for tenure,

  hopeful about his classroom evaluations,

  his latest research. If nothing else,

  he thinks we should retain him for his warm

  collegiality and service to the institution.

  But he is merely plotting where to poop next.

  No limit to the academic freedoms

  of a dog these days, no end

  to the publication of alimentary happiness.

  Paul Willis

  His

  My puppy’s small cries

  have crept beneath the sill of my sleep

  like such sad little crickets

  that I have had to

  spring him from his crate

  and take him into my bed.

  With the soft pads of his paws

  pressed to my nose

  I smell puppy smell

  until we both wag ourselves silly

  and he yawns a big puppy

  my-head’s-too-heavy yawn

  and curls himself about my head.

  In this gentlest of coronations,

  I am crowned—His.

  Linda Opyr

  Homecoming

  Whether I’ve been halfway around the world or just out to the mailbox, Jenny’s greeting upon my return is equally enthusiastic. I hear her prepare for my arrival as I walk across the garage. First, there’s the gentle thud as she leaps off the couch in the family room above me, then the clicking of toenails as she races across the tiles on the kitchen floor, and finally the thawp-thawping of her sturdy tail against the walls in our tiny mudroom. By the time I open the back door, Jenny’s tail is moving so fast and furiously, her entire body is wiggling and waggling. She leans into me, nearly taking me out at the knees as she does so, as though she just can’t get close enough. She looks up at me, golden eyes shining with pure joy. It’s always a perfect homecoming.

  Christine Otto Hirshland

  Rescue Dog

  I often wonder just who rescued whom.

  Ostensibly, I am the rescuer. I searched for weeks to find just the right dog who most needed me. I filled out detailed adoption papers and drove a hundred miles to meet his foster family. When they decided we were a good fit, I brought him home where I provide for his basic needs and then some, showering him with attention and affection. In short, I welcomed him into my home and my heart.

 

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