I’ll Greet the Dogs

I’ll Greet the Dogs

(“To people who are pure, everything is pure.” Titus 1:15a)

The old black dog sat motionless on the grass still
wet from yesterday’s rains.
He did not move to meet me. He merely lifted his
head and eyed my silently, too weary to move.
The air smelled like honey.

Sometimes my mind hurts, sometimes my vision is too narrow.
Often I remember the stabs of yesterday. Or hurts a decade
old intrude into my silent strolls.

I’ve spoken to the dogs along my route,
to the ones who bark like I am their enemy. After time,
as I call them aside, they bark once and then follow me
from behind their fences. They do not know my name
and I don’t know most of theirs. There is one
fierce chihuahua though that insists on biting
the seam of my jeans. I should bring treats for that
tiny adversary.

I have rounded the corner a dozen times every year;
I have sounded out the consonants of pain. But my
dreams are less fearful these days, my thoughts turning
to unconstrained moments in the sun.

A deer and her fawn ambled by my front window
a week ago. I think they were heading to my roses
for a midday snack. My flowers lack their blooms from
Spring to Summer and I think I should protect them from
those gentle creatures.

The quiet days sometimes tax me, I want to hear a human
voice, even a stuttering expression, even a conversation
filled with question marks and compliments. About half
the time, though, the solitude soothes me. The loudest arrows
are a thousand years behind me; they have died down across the
prairies and no longer find me faltering. My body carries
pain apart from the static harm that ebbs and flows. It does
not befit me to grab yesterday’s hurt. I’ll greet the dogs
and maybe a deer on my next venture around the town.