Moky, a good dog, remembered

I found this just last night when I was searching in old computer files for something else.  This beautiful member of our family died several years ago.  I don't even remember writing this, it was a sad time as he was unexpectedly very sick and his death was shocking.  We had two wonderful dogs, Moky and Emmy, both gone and missed.  Moky was my daughter's best friend and he adored her.  No dog has ever loved anyone more.  It is the hardest thing about dogs, that their life span is so terribly short. 

I thought about editing this piece and making it into more of a poem but then I thought, no, let it remain what it is, a heartfelt letter to our beloved boy.


For Moky

I never knew how hard you worked

how extensive your job was

meeting each pair of feet as they climbed out of bed into the morning

already up, having made the rounds of the house,

sniffed each door and inspected the carpet

for any crumbs from the evening before.

I never knew how you followed my footsteps, unnoticed

as a shadow until I turned and tripped,

how you took my outbursts of temper without blame

or accusation, how you ran down the driveway to greet me

your whole body wriggling in joy just that I was home

You were so good at your work, it went largely unnoticed,

we focused more on your clowning skills, inadvertant though they were

the way you hid under the dining room table if you thought you had been bad,

rolling in the perfume ads that we pulled from magazines, the last time you did that

I thought I should film it for posterity, but I didn't because there would surely be a next time.

I thought you a lazy and loved, indulged even, type of dog the way you jumped in my lap

and snuggled in next to me, like I was letting you get away with something even though now

I realize how much comfort you gave with your presence.  How every doorbell ring, every visitor, every rabbit in the yard, squirrels, birds, cats, got your fierce attention, how every thing was greeting with a mix of passion and friendliness and happiness.  I never realized how much a part of your work was happiness, the carrier of it, the way you pulled everyone out of themselves or an iffy or bad day and made us focus on you, your canine joy, your bliss at the crisp autumn scented wind, the piles and drifts of snow taller than you, the way the slate walk warms in the spring sun, perfect for sleeping.

I find myself looking at the season approaching, the unfolding of summer, a good season for dogs, but how it all feels terrible without you, curled in the back garden, a flower folded without hope of sun, and I wish I knew how to tell you thank you for your enormous gift of a job well done, noticed in every moment now that there is no one who can take your place.

 

Sunday Quote

            A Brief for the Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

- Jack Gilbert, A Brief for the Defense.  Refusing Heaven.







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Sunday Quote both late and early

Teach me, O God, not to torture myself, not to make a martyr out of myself through stifling reflection, but rather teach me to breathe deeply in faith.

- Soren Kierkegaard