Learning Love from a Dog
My hound dog, Ellie, was abused
by a cop before I rescued her
from her rescuer, an abused puppy,
unable to restrain her bladder
all day long. The cop’s wife begged
the pound to reclaim her,
to save her from her savior.
That’s where I come in –
a hero – they say things like that
so you will take a dog home.
Still, Ellie couldn’t hold it
at my house either, she told me,
with a cowering whimper,
one need only care enough to listen –
and every night I carried her
down the stairs, out the door,
placing her gently on the grass,
where she proceeded to lollygag
for a frustrating minute or two
before doing her business –
it went like that for two months…
Eventually she made the trek herself,
and these many years later, still,
she wakes me – with a bark these days,
and in the stretch of these fortunate years,
my forties gave way to my fifties,
a slow event marked by back pain,
aching knees, stiff joints all over,
and for every one of those years,
Ellie has aged seven, they say,
always wagging her tail, graying
face unaware she is now older than me.
Soon, I will lift her into the bed
when she can no longer leap,
and I’ll carry her in my human way,
down the stairs when she tells me,
each painful step a gift to the old girl,
and I will set her lightly in the grass
where I have no doubt that she’ll delay,
sniffing the yard, stopping occasionally
to look up the mountain for a rabbit,
and she can take as long as she likes
because she is older than I am,
wiser in the way she quickly lives,
fully present every waking minute.
Ellie is now the rescuer, teaching
calm grace before the setting sun,
wagging her tail when I look at her,
the way she never changes, always
living and loving completely.