The Chance to Love Everything

All summer I made friends

with the creatures nearby ---

they flowed through the fields

and under the tent walls,

or padded through the door,

grinning through their many teeth,

looking for seeds,

suet, sugar; muttering and humming,

opening the breadbox, happiest when

there was milk and music. But once

in the night I heard a sound

outside the door, the canvas

bulged slightly ---something

was pressing inward at eye level.

I watched, trembling, sure I had heard

the click of claws, the smack of lips

outside my gauzy house ---

I imagined the red eyes,

the broad tongue, the enormous lap.

Would it be friendly too?

Fear defeated me. And yet,

not in faith and not in madness

but with the courage I thought

my dream deserved,

I stepped outside. It was gone.

Then I whirled at the sound of some

shambling tonnage.

Did I see a black haunch slipping

back through the trees? Did I see

the moonlight shining on it?

Did I actually reach out my arms

toward it, toward paradise falling, like

the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---

the dark heart of the story that is all

the reason for its telling?

Once, a thrice of decades ago, I was in a tent on a New Mexico plateau.  In the night there came a sniffing and prodding at the tent, much as Mary describes in her poem.  The animal(s) circled many times and I held my breath trying to not be noticed in the silence, and to also listen. Were those the feet of bear, coyote, wolf?  And depending on which, what was the best strategy?  To charge, to run, to cower? I had no weapon in the tent.  Fear defeated me and I had no courage to step outside to see who was stalking my body and my house for possible food.

Since that time whenever I go camping, I take something to bludgeon life with me in the tent - a bat, a golf club, my camping knives. I've heard too many bear stories to have my life story end with, "The bear ran with her off into the wilds and she was never seen again."

Yet, what better ending might there be?  To be taken into the wilds, to become one with teeth, earth, the spring's cubs, and droppings?   

In fact, is any other ending possible?

How would you have your life end?

Dogs - June 20, 2010

Over the wide field

the dark deer went running,

five dogs screaming

at his flanks,

and his heels,

my own two darlings

among them

lunging and buckling

with desire

as they leaped

for the throat

as they tried

and tried again

to bring him down...

At the lake

the deer plunged...

he clambered

up the far shore.

The dogs

moaned and screeched

they flung themselves

on the grass

panting and steaming.

It took hours

but finally...

they woke

from fitful naps

they stepped

in their old good natures

toward us

look look

into their eyes...

here is such happiness when you speak their names!

here is such unforced loved!

here is such shyness such courage!

here is the shining rudimentary soul

here is hope retching, the world as it is

here is the black the red the bottomless pool

I have heard countless stories spoken in regretful tones from others who speak about the killing their dogs have done. Mild mannered and love-giving companions turn into frenzied packs and kill other dogs and cats in the home, not to mention the unsuspecting prey in neighborhoods, fields, and wild places. Knowing the nature of dogs I wonder why then people keep them, for they can do so much harm to what you love and what is beautiful. Their wildness cannot be easily tamed. Maybe the humans aren't trying hard enough. Maybe, just maybe, we relish their wildness and somewhere in our co-evolved human/dog DNA we don't want them to quit hunting - for their hunting is our hunting. We recall when we ran to survive, and this confused does not die easily. We look into their eyes and see reflected back how hard hope is to come by when love lives so easily with violence.

Where or to whom do you love, and yet also turn from?