A sad poem about my boyhood dog, Maggie, “Puppies on Holiday” and a newer poem called “Dog tracks in the tall grass.” A return to Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs: “The Poetry Teacher” and “Percy Speaks While I am Doing Taxes”

Dog tracks in the tall grass

Dog tracks in the tall grass

serpentine reverie; love

letter – not from sky to

ground, too many poems

written with green & dew

tipped blades tickling the

poet’s neck gazing up

“oh what majesty” they

might say, “oh what abyss

does hang above” the last

word on those green pastures

is in Leaves of Grass. For

that matter, too many poems

are written of the sky,

meadows busily sequestering

mileage on library shelves.

What does the sky write

upon the ground? Is her

handwriting two long-bodied

dachshunds, dog tracks in

the tall grass spelling out

what autumn leaves will

some months from now,

what shadow-script three

meadowlarks might paint

while listing breeze-to-breeze

on their way to taller trees,

branches unbothered by

the barking of neighbor dogs

or gnashing cats, the occasional

raccoon scuttled deeper

into town by a developer’s

careless greed. The great

mowing has commenced,

I think, hand dumbly

clinging leash. As if a

cul-de-sac was some

prophesy and not just

the harbinger of new

houses, more dogs to

bark, more garage light

posts for birds to nest

behind, more porch steps

for cats to holler from.

This is to say it is all

happening, quietly,

but with no conspiracy,

just. Time. July will

continue tomorrow, at

least until August’s born

into September, and so

on, and so on. This, until

the dog tracks spell some

other psalm on the grass

lying in wait, underneath

some loosely packed snow.

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