|
What About Dogs?
Anthropologists find
dog bones with our bones
carefully buried together
for 15,000 years
Evidence that this is not
a casual relationship
Your narcissistic house cat
is with us only half those years
and the noble horse
only half that time again
It is an interesting matter
of seniority
The dog at my feet is not mine
and I am not hers
We are bound together
in genetic memory
of some ancient partnership
The say we had before the dogs
a hundred thousand years
acquaintanceship with wolves
We Homo Sapiens possibly learning
the basics of society
from them
What made that first grey wolf
lurking in cold boreal shadows
come to our fire
or was it we being ourselves
who initiated contact
by stealing some of their puppies
We hunted with them
understood the power
of the pack from them
and they curled themselves in snow
nose tucked under tail
at the mouths of our caves
We changed them
cut and spliced them
bent them to our needs
My dog has exact notions about sheep
and my neighbour's dog
knows all about rats
I've received much in this life
have lost and have been lost
taken to my human knees
and often it was a dog
with unsuspicious heart
that found me
She is sleeping now
dreaming dog dreams
her head on my foot
one large paw atop my other foot
She claims me and trusts me
this way
She's with me 12 years now
thought the dog does not mark time as I do
We talk, listen, follow, wait for
and sometimes ignore each other
but there has never been a moment
of mistrust or doubt
between us
|
