Dog Days

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know...jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside... is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace." ~ Milan Kundera

Beneath the tickle of dogwood branches

And scuttling blossoms

I nestle my bliss into the fur of my love

Watching him lap up regurgitations

Of our scenic affections

Under the pallor of moonbeams


Counting paw prints in the form of crushed grass,

I wondering if he sees

The dawn of a new day just as clearly

As I do

His muzzle says much
… of nothing

Just unrolls a scroll in lolling pants

That licks letters from the crevices of my mouth


Sun crowns from the womb of madam earth

Painting twilight with fiery hair folicles

And I can no longer see our world

In black and white

Palms stroke his belly in pretense

That all is the same

Not forever changed

But his snout catches truth in my pores

And he sneezes it away


I can do nothing as he gathers himself on his hind legs

And struts off from our little hill of heaven

For the temperature in my bones differs

And will find no solace in a tail

Coiled around my waist

Or a muzzle burrowed in the crest of my neck

But I long for those arctic moments

When only his coat I placed on my skin

Where my paradise lie in his fleece

Where his company was my peace