Dogs are natural scavengers They have the stomach for it I remember Beth swallowed some decaying squirrel whole Its tail hanging out of her mouth for the longest time Nothing ever became of it I always wondered where the deer went when they died The forest was always a pantheistic land of wonder As the snow tickled our noses Lexie was nowhere to be found I laughed it off and yelled for her Then yelled and yelled Then ran and abruptly stopped Lexie tenderly edging toward the deer carcass Shy even Then the bump on the bridge of her nose appeared A couple months later, in an unusual spring heat Lexie leaves the trail With a straightforward earnestness We walk an unfamiliar side–path Cross an undiscovered stream Another carcass prone to the sun A vulture crouched in an adjacent tree Impatient for our departure The bump on her head reappeared at the top Lexie was given two months to live And, at that other river, Her jaw too weak to grip the large branches so much a part of her This third carcass Peaceful, laying amid the thorns One does not begrudge one condemned to death to take their fill of death Not one lick of impropriety We filled our days with walks We denied ourselves none of our walks We partook Peace
Author: Dave
Twilight
In the dawn of humanity, we crowned you with stories of how meaningful you were. Grown clever and independent, we decried you with critical analysis: you are just a ball of hot gas. Now that I’ve seen your dark side, after I’ve recovered from the shock — neither I nor you, nor our galaxy are the center of the universe — Let me embrace you as in my youth. Let me swoon in your warmth. Let me re-understand the truth of your fairy tales. Let the life you created and nurtured reciprocate.
Night Fetching
It’s a pleasant night First one in a while I haven’t taken Lexie fetching for a while either — overworked So, instead of taking a right we take a why not Can’t see a moon to light our way but the suburb lights reflect in the pink clouds Park closed at dark Park Authority I'll tell them I didn’t see I don’t even know if she’ll want to fetch She’s all sniffs I let her off leash — no running to the stream As we pass it by She shyly deviates tween path and brook Only when I go off–path does her tail wag and her feet scamper to water I᾿m surprised to find the stream half–frozen a sheet of ice spreads towards the middle No sticks around, so I climb onto the tree fallen across the stream and fetch one there amidst the debris Will she need daylight to see or is it some other sense? I throw it into the stream and she fetches it back I throw it in again; she’s taking a while she needs daylight, I guess Here comes Lexie dragging this mythical log Strange, pure, hewn branch from the river bottom Not waterlogged, just heavy in solidity She can’t even drag it out of the water just up to the shore and tears off half its bark in one bite So, over and over, mythical log to be dredged from the bottom of icy river on beautiful night Headlights peek at me for a while and fade an ambulance siren blares a police copter circles around Mocking my fears — no one cares Lexi scampers around the sheet of ice not finding the branch in the depths “Get it!” I cheer, and she goes in and drags it out again
Creative Child
We go on our walk Leash slung around my torso Stick resting on my shoulder Me, in boots and hat The master understander of social obligations to fellow path–takers barker of commands thrower of the stick gazing ahead at her Her happiness mine She, naked to the world The child wagging her tail and shyly, naïvely approaching all comers reluctant heeder joyful fetcher exploring the vast world of earthly treasures surrounding us
Refraction
A hard scientific concept to explain light It knows the fastest route ahead of time and bends as it transitions, veers course joyously following some cosmic efficiency depending on the medium in which it finds itself I throw the stick far down the creek thinking to guide Lexi into a long swim with natural instinct she trots lengthwise down the watery beach and, in happenstance, selects the most efficient entrance to dive into the deep Then there were those long minutes she spent at the edge of the pool Determinedly awaiting the stick to drift to her
Canvasing
I walk through a neighborhood I've lived by all my life and never have seen Low sun kissing autumn leaves the birds gaze at me overhead As I go from house to house: no one home All the political rhetoric, my own visions of the future, fade as the strong silence speaks of so many astonishingly different lives, congregations, bubbles of authentic existence I check another NH box, and my communist dreams shudder I'm beginning to understand this notion of small government, I feel wild individualism growing like a rash around me, smug and complacent "Good fences make good neighbors" smiling contentedly at me Government is now such a tiny fragment of these peoples', anyone's, life Me, a solicitor -- a trespasser -- wading through the peace of sunset And it's so sad; even for a romance, these days, its health requires some rugged independence I get home and run for my lonely, lonely life
Fall Fetching
The scene dimmed with a gentle rush of wind as the leaves fell into the stream The dreamlike matte blurring of the surface as the sunken leaves glowed like gems All the while, soft droplets innocently danced with their distinctive expansion everywhere Followed by heavier drops, deeper, not intrusive — on another level, ringing out — And the kersplash and the wake of my dog causing huge ripples, yet still harmonious with all the beautiful blustery co–action Wispy winds brush over the water with their own tickling touch The wind and a pleasant rain come up from behind me, pushing me towards the vast coverage of webs of undulations all clearly distinct, all meshing together in a beautiful, delicious, mystifying fall day of fetch
Dumbo
I love myself I love the big elephant standing in the room of myself and the little mouse of myself And the little mouse of myself will tell that elephant that its wild dreams of flying were quite real and the restraint holding him back, quite psychological And what an absurd sight I will be a blundering mass of flying elephant aloft and a mouse astride myself with glee
Preface
Wise child you already know what lays beyond Step–by–step allow self—belief to faithfully guide you Within, words of peace your words of peace So, be at peace Take some time to be at peace Peace within before you begin.
Waterlogged
Sticks are too small to waste her time with Only branches will do I break a nice big one down to 5 feet we walk down to the stream We could go on and on forever casting and fetching I throw it out beyond the bend she stops as she approaches it her face all perplexity and looks into the water just under her With a strange backward digging effort she thrashes dives her head into the water and exhumes a waterlogged 12–foot branch With glee, she trots back with it Sometimes, she’ll voraciously chew up an over–sized log dredged from the depths biting away in continuous joy and concentrated angst with the occasional bit of wood wedged in her teeth Sometimes, she’ll disintegrate the whole thing to shreds This time, we cast and fetch over and over a rainbow in each splash Too big for us to carry away in comfort