Poetry Friday

On Wednesday, Jack, my sweet, crazy, goofy, always up for a game of fetch, scared of his own shadow mama's boy, four-year-old lab/rottweiler had to be put down.  It was totally unexpected, but he was a canine garbage disposal and would eat anything- socks, underwear, cookie wrappers-- and this time, he evidently ate something that caused an intestinal obstruction, that could not be repaired. I went looking for a poem in honor of my sweet guy and found an essay, instead, so I turned it into a found poem, or kind of a poem anyway.

Where To Bury A Dog

There are various places 

within which a dog may be buried. 

We are thinking now of a setter, 

whose coat was flame in the sunshine, 

and who, so far as we are aware, 

never entertained a mean 

or an unworthy thought. 

This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, 

under four feet of garden loam,

 and at its proper season the cherry 

strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. 

Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, 

or any flowering shrub of the garden, 

is an excellent place to bury a good dog. 

Beneath such trees, 

such shrubs, 

he slept in the drowsy summer, 

or gnawed at a flavorous bone, 

or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. 

These are good places, 

in life or in death. 

Yet it is a small matter, 

and it touches sentiment 

more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, 

if sometimes he leaps through your dreams 

actual as in life, 

eyes kindling, 

questing, 

asking, 

laughing, 

begging, 

it matters not at all 

where that dog sleeps 

at long and at last. 

On a hill where the wind is unreduced 

and the trees are roaring, 

or beside a stream 

he knew in puppyhood, 

or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, 

where most exhilarating cattle graze. 

It is all one to the dog, 

and all one to you, 

and nothing is gained, 

and nothing lost -- 

if memory lives. 

But there is one best place 

to bury a dog. 

One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, 

the secret of which you must already have, 

he will come to you when you call -- 

come to you over the grim, 

dim frontiers of death, 

and down the well-remembered path, 

and to your side again. 

And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel 

they should not growl at him, 

nor resent his coming, 

for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, 

who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, 

who hear no whimper 

pitched too fine for mere audition, 

people who may never really have had a dog. 

Smile at them then, 

for you shall know something that is hidden from them, 

and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place 

to bury a good dog 

is in the heart of his master.

by Ben Hur Lampman


Tabatha is hosting Poetry Friday at The Opposite of Indifference.