"He showed me where my heart is"
(and other ways to praise a dog)
Dear friends,
Growing up, we had a dog named Smokey. A springer spaniel, he was easygoing and patient. We got him just after my sister (she’s #4) was born. Numbers 5 and 6 followed in the next years. Only after he’d died did I realise how much I had loved the small thump-thump of his tail whenever I’d arrive home late at night, trying to make the least amount of noise possible.
We lived in the country (my parents still live in that house). And, at the time, there weren’t many other houses around us, but the few that did also had dogs. The hounds seemed to go on small adventures together, all kinds of dogs hanging out together for a few hours. It never occurred to us to walk Smokey, because he was constantly on the move anyway — chasing crows, running about with other dogs.
I’ve been on the lookout for a dog poem for a long time — I’d like to include one in the next season of Poetry Unbound. This one here, by Jane Mead, is a strong contender.
Toby The Stray
The crown of his head smelled of redwood boughs
where he wiped his eyes in the morning.
The bottom of his feet smelled like brown sugar.
Through summer grasses, through winter fog
we set our compass on his white tail, waving.
The crown of his head smelled of redwood boughs.
He tipped his nose into the breeze, took his readings,
thanked me for dinner, snoozed on his back. Happiness
was his calling, and his feet smelled like brown sugar.
Close in the night, the coyotes fell silent
when he loosed his deep bark. There was a white heart
on the crown of his head. (It smelled of redwood boughs.)
He survived: scorpions, rattler bite, hound paralysis
and tick fever (twice). He showed me where my heart is,
and the bottom of his feet smelled like brown sugar.
He squeaked when he yawned, he sighed when he slept-
our bear, our lion, our soft-eyed prince.
The crown of his head smelled of redwood boughs
and the bottom of his feet like brown sugar.
“Toby The Stray” by Jane Mead from Money Money Money | Water Water Water, as collected in Jane Mead: Collected and New Poems 1991-2019 (Alice James Books)
I love that poem: the smell of Toby, the sleeping sighs, the heart on the crown of his head and — oh Lordy — that gorgeous line “He showed me where my heart is …” There have been many requests from people for us to do a dog poem, and I know why. I hope you like this particular piece of beauty by Jane Mead.
Part of the reason I like it is the delicious repetition pattern of the villanelle: how the first and the third line repeat, alternately, at the end of the second to fifth stanzas, and together as an inverted couplet to close out the final stanza. The repeated pattens of loving and caring for a dog, their love and dependence, their habits and presence, all repeat throughout years the way the lines repeat — modifying only slightly — in this form.
So here’s my question this week: What other dog poems do you love?
I’d love to hear them.
Poetry in the World
A list of events: Online and in the US (Honolulu; Rhinebeck, NY; North Kingstown, RI; Stockbridge, MA)
June 17, Online
I’m offering a talk and poetry reading — titled “Hell is Other People” — through the WCCM. You can find more information and register to attend here.
July 31, Honolulu, Hawaii
I’ll be giving a talk at the Honolulu Museum of Art as part of a residency with the Merwin Conservancy. Details here.
September 26–28, Rhinebeck, New York, and Online
I am leading a weekend retreat exploring “Strange Stories of the Bible” at Omega Institute. Expect strangeness, swearing, f**ked up stories of families, and literary brilliance. You can join in person or online.
November 14, North Kingstown, Rhode Island
Together with Sophie Cabot Black, I’ll be reading as part of Spencer Reece’s “14 Gold Street Series” Turn up — it’s free, it’s at 5:30 P.M. ET, and the location is here.
December 19–21, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
I’m leading a retreat called “Poetry of Peace” at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health. More details and registration here.
Dharma
by Billy Collins.
The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.
Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?
Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.
If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.
Mar Oliver: A dog can never tell you what she knows of the smells of the world. But you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.