Percy Two

I have a little dog who likes to nap with me.
He climbs on my body and puts his face in my neck.
He is sweeter than soap.
He is more wonderful than a diamond necklace,
which can't even bark.
I would like to take him to Kashmir and the Ukraine,
and Jerusalem and Palestine and Iraq and Darfur,
that the sorrowing thousands might see his laughing mouth.
I would like to take him to Washington, right into
the oval office
where Donald Rumsfeld would crawl out of the president's
armpit
and kneel down on the carpet, and romp like a boy.

For once, for a moment, a rational man.

Now that's an idea worth sharing - what might we bright to the influential and the sorrowing multitudes so that they may gain reason, or perhaps better said, let go of reason and let love and joy in? I think that I would bring a parrot to the oval office. There the bird would bow down his head, raising his neck feathers in which President Obama would promptly bury his nose and inhale sacredness. Then he would reaffirm his faith that there is nothing sweeter than life itself, or more beautiful than himself. He might secretly see himself as President Parrot, no more, and no less. Then he would wing himself to Afghanistan, Yemen, Bolivia, or Argentina and offer liberation by now bowing down his head and kneeling on the carpet to the beauty within and the beauty without. Such is my hope here in the dog days of August.

What would you take to Washington?