In the legend of the lovers Tristan and Iseult, there is a small, magical, immortal dog named Petitcrieu who "ate half the sadness of everyone he met." He didn't gift any type of forgetfulness, but instead bestowed the ability to bear the sorrow easily.
Bells are ringing wet and pink
on a muscled shoreline of skin,
lining me with their tolling.
Their knell is so heavy in the ear,
it sinks into the sand chokes
trapped on my frozen tongue.
Someone great has vanished again.
The clang and clatter escapes
out of this red chest oven,
bangs around the wild world.
Grief is announced, by way
of cacophony. Where are the dogs?
The ones who eat our sadness
with their bellish barking?
Who look into our brief eyes
& remove the worst of the sting?
Who serve the moon, defy the sun?
They have gone missing.
Sorrow rushes through the waters
a blued frigate with a headwind,
overtaking the heart, the head,
the curried spine...
In this age, sadness is the magazine
that all of us are reading.