Never.

NEVER forget what they took from you.

Waits.

For my ol' buddy, Molson ...

CONSOLATION

Though he, that ever kind and true,

Kept stoutly step by step with you,

Your whole long, gusty lifetime through,

Be gone a while before,

Be now a moment gone before,

Yet, doubt not, soon the seasons shall restore

Your friend to you.

He has but turned the corner — still

He pushes on with right good will,

Through mire and marsh, by heugh and hill,

That self-same arduous way —

That self-same upland, hopeful way,

That you and he through many a doubtful day

Attempted still.

He is not dead, this friend — not dead,

But in the path we mortals tread

Got some few, trifling steps ahead

And nearer to the end;

So that you too, once past the bend,

Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend

You fancy dead.

Push gaily on, strong heart! The while

You travel forward mile by mile,

He loiters with a backward smile

Till you can overtake,

And strains his eyes to search his wake,

Or whistling, as he sees you through the brake,

Waits on a stile.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Calms.

Firchau, Molson, 2008

NATURAL WORLD

There is nothing in the picture

you don’t see. That is, there

is nothing in the picture, but

you can’t see it, as there

is also nothing beyond the picture that

you can see. As you watch

the picture and begin to notice

more, the nothing grows less, but

never less than nothing. For you,

the picture has no separate

being, and, like you, the

nothing in the picture exists.

We teach a child to see a ball, a tree,

a dog, sitting at the moment.

The dog knows little of our confusion, and

calms us with her eyes.

Dan Gerber

Unexpected.

WE WERE RUNNING

in memory of Annie

We were running up the slope of a hill,
that dog and I, an early winter rain
beginning to fall, wind-driven and sharp,
the clouds so black the edges of the hills
were etched and incandescent. That dog
and I were running, the two of us
apart and yet together, and even now,
in the solitude of a quiet hour—the days
and that dog long gone—I can follow
those far-blown traces of unexpected joy
and find my way back again: heart wild,
lungs filling with the breath of winter,
and that dog beside me running headlong
into the world without end.

Peter Everwine

Detachment.

Firchau, Molson, 2008

DHARMA

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 dog house
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?
Ghandi 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.

Billy Collins

Thank you, Zoë!

Molson, I miss you, bud.

Buddy.

"What I would do for wisdom,"
I cried out as a young man.
Evidently not much. Or so it seems.
Even on walks I follow the dog.

Jim Harrison

For my buddy, who always led the way.

I miss you, Molson ... GET THE STICK!