Friday Poem

The dogs were tired and bewildered,

stunned by the ways they’d been treated

by men—yelled at, kicked around, left unfed

in the cold and the rain. Not to mention

the usual predations of time and illness:

cold creak of the hips, tumor and clouded eye,

ears that ceased to help at all …

What could they do,

To whom might they appeal?

The wisest among them

—that was his reputation—

suggested that a letter be drafted to God;

only by appeal to a higher authority

might their plight be considered.

But once the questions were written,

who would carry it? Who knew how

to imagine the way?

The ablest was chosen—a retriever,

he could walk for days,

nearly incapable of flagging,

and his entire being knew the imperative,

to carry. But how will you carry it,
they asked? In my mouth. No, they cried,
you’ll drop it every time you bark.
And then the wisest made this plan:

they’d roll their plea into a scroll,
tightly, and their hero would open
his legs, and lift his tail, and carry
the missive inside him,

where he was sure to keep it

until he reached the gates of paradise.

And off he trotted, head high, and tail,

only a slight delicacy in his walk

betraying discomfort, into the fields

with their blonde grasses, upstream,

off toward the border of the world.

Do I need to tell you he never returned?

Why Lord, the letter read, did you put

Therefore, when each dog meets a stranger,

it’s necessary to sniff beneath the tail:

perhaps, this time, this is the returning messenger;

it’s still possible a reply might reach them.

by Mark Doty
from School of the Arts
Harper Collins, 2005