That child,
seems to be reading to my old dog friend.
Can we teach a dog to read and see the significance
some men find in syllables unsaid?
In print,
Sibilant denture whistles, perk no ear
silent esses no ear can hear, un spoken esses essentially
signify nothing, simple noise.
But a good dog will respond to the slightest whistle, as if…
A sibyl said listen,
hear the wind enter the world once with
inspired expired whistling sound found in song
this way,
this is the way,
Say plain the sound of each sign.
Alpha Beta, Aleph Bet, Ayee Bee
See, these let words be saved as signals
Letters, let silent sounds hold meaning in
signs of sounds men can make,
Like
Ah. or baah, which certain ruminants make as well…
A man can say ah, and mean plain nothin'
and some dogs can too,
but when dogs say, ah, it's often
a yawn gone into a groan like a stretched out
awww as the back arches
backward and front paws stretch out.
Tail swishing slow sweeps
swirling dust mites in a shaft of morning light,
more wind than any butterfly wing or
humming bird wing could stir.
"Remember", his brown eyes say,
this posture always meant,
"let's do some fun,
go for a run,
follow a scent"
But then, another yawn
and a shake. a glance from those knowing eyes,
signifying, signing , if I am happy, he is, too.
A dog friend then punctuates, by curling down into
a black and white comma
with a bit of golden tail
covering the nose
twitiching ante
cipitating a chase that leads to this new place,
where new sounds can sound
insignificant,
dream time humms,
not worth the effort to hear,
since we are not going anywhere, today.
Ah, be, still.
Tomorrow is the myth.
My dog swears that's true.
Today, or never, and
never's fine. He Yawns.
Old Oliver died, in mid 2020. He was a very good dog.
