Overland to the Islands
Let’s go – much as the dog goes,
intently haphazard. The
Mexican light on a day that
‘smells like autumn in Connecticut’
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur – a radiance
consorting with the dance.
……………………………Under his feet
rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions – dancing
edgeways, there’s nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction – ‘every step an arrival’.
by Denise Levertov
from Contemporary American Poetry;
Penguin Books Ltd, Middlesex, England, 1966