Wet nose, four paws, and a wagging tail
follow right beside me on an uncharted trail.
We're exploring, but just what for?
National treasure or maybe folklore?
He doesn't know and neither do I.
On a day like this we don't need to ask why.
I stop for a break and he looks right at me.
"C'mon Dev. Let's make it snappy."
I can't disappoint those big brown eyes.
He never complains, frowns, or tells lies.
His only intention is to insure I'm happy.
So I stand back up and give him a patting.
We march on in search of who knows.
Through the highest highs and the lowest lows,
There is always an adventure just around the bend.
He's not only a puppy - he's my hairy best friend.

So is my dog god
as I have ordained
or am I a madman,
absolutely insane?  
       His birth name is Domino
       he picked it himself...
       a black and white pit
       pup he jumped
       on a shelf and
       down came the bones
       that anointed him so.  
Domino Dominus
both names mean
God,
but to me he's
a best friend and
sometimes my dog.

Tap Dancing Dog
In my Kitchen
Waiting For Dinner

Panting abruptly

Scratching her ****
On the raffia carpet

She said,
“Give me your sadness
you don’t need it here.
Dry your tears, lose your fear, you know
I will always be here.
You always used to tell me
that I saved your life.
Those dark times were rough
you held me so tight.

But what I need you to know now
is how you’ve helped me,
so your journey can be free in your thoughts of me.
You would tell me you loved me
and show it even more.
From special cooked meals to wrestling on the floor.
You kept me warm at night, and cooled my head when I got a little heated.
And even now at the end, I still don’t feel defeated.

I had you in my life every step of the way.
From the birth of my children to this
dying day.
You have never failed to make me happy,
I just hope I can look down
and see you happy, too, and help you through the frowns.
I’ll look below, you look above.
Know that I’m there, and we still have
our love.”

She never spoke a word as she said this to me,
just those eyes that I gazed in said all that was needed.
A paw on my hand and a last wag of her tail,
I watched her pass, and began to wail.
I composed myself,
ready to face new fears.
As I stumbled outside, I dried my tears,
and I looked above, because she told me to.
And I could hear her saying,
“Don’t you worry, I’m here with you.”

Pequeño por fuera, enorme por dentro
cazador de nacido, mañoso aprendido
de orejas grandes y cola parada.

El mejor amigo, mi mejor amigo
distraído, te llamaba el instinto
me querías y yo te quiero

Solo espero que estés en un cielo
donde vivan grillos y conejos
donde comas como tanto te gustaba
donde juegues hasta no poder, donde duermas
como nunca, donde puedas darte un baños de sol
donde el agua no te falte y tengas amigos con quien compartir.

Si no hay cielo para perros
ven a mi corazón
que aquí te quiero.

Ojala pudiera haber estado ahí
para cuidarte y acariciarte,
rascarte la panza y pasear contigo.

Our Dog Howling at Sunset

At sunset, the dog howls at sirens in town.
If he were snowbound in Talkeetna,
A hundred miles from nowhere,
What would he howl at instead?

I saw my husband trudging through the frost,
His blue jacket half-tinted orange and red,
“I don’t like the way you sound,” he said
As he left, deserting one who was already lost.

If I were a thousand miles from him now,
Listening to the wolves’ mournful cries,
And my beloved shunning me as he does now,
Would I pretend to believe my lover’s lies?

Or, instead, would it be enough to exist
Where the short summer dies on winter’s grist,
And true love’s a dream born on a dreamer’s mist,
And the one to stay with is the one you’ve just kissed?

If I lived in a land so cruel and hard,
Would I be bargaining with my soul?
If love’s short date were but a moon’s silver shard,
Would he be a passing thought, and my son the whole

Of any future we had scattered out on the snow,
Or caught in the rime-bound trees?
Would I see then what I already know—
That his future lies with himself and not me?

As our wolf howls a timeless wail to the air
I can listen and guess at its season.
I can comfort myself it will always be there,
Beyond human hopes, beyond reason.

Far wiser, the black-furred hound, than I,
To sing out his ancient song.
Waiting, watching, as we struggle and die,
Only to pass his wisdom along.

Waiting, hoping as he does for a touch,
He is made to think that he asks too much--
Waiting for a kind word or loving hand--
Wild and alone, in humanity’s bleak land.

A southern writer once lamented the lack
Of courage in humankind,
And suggested we borrow the strength we see
In the branches of an olive tree.

Yet there’s more courage in the dog-wolf’s cry,
Penned out on our city-cropped lawn,
As if he knows the grief of my son and I
When the man we both love is gone.

“Could we not as well” take a lesson from him,
Our wild and loyal friend?
To howl out our sorrow and loneliness,
Though the pain might never end?

Now, in the twilight I hear my lover return,
With no greeting to me, and I burn
For the summer’s newborn passion I recall.
The twilight wolf’s mourning tells it all:

That we never will have what we had before
That love can die just as well as it’s born,
That a child is the only one who restores
What is lost to the lonesome, the wolves, the forlorn.


July 6, 2001