January 7: Poetry Workshop, Richard Blanco, "One Dog"

I led a poetry workshop tonight.  All of the prompts were based on poems written for Presidential Inaugurations.  Robert Frost, Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, Elizabeth Alexander, and Richard Blanco.  All of the poems full of light and some brand of hope.

So, on a day where those things seemed pretty scarce in my life, I offer you my attempt at something . . . hopeful.

One Dog

by:  Martin Achatz

after Richard Blanco's "One Today"

Yes, this is one of those dog poems
full of leather tongue, wet noses pressed
into crotches.  Because dogs are all about
hope.  For backyard hunts of gray
squirrels or screeching jays.
For a piece of hotdog bun to flake off,
fall to hardwood floor.  A fly
in the water dish, flash of mouse
in corner dark.  A dog survives
on hope, from first yawn and stretch
to pillow sigh.  Hope is what wags
the leash, digs in a box for a bone-
shaped biscuit.  At night, hope

slams the car door, enters the house,
calls out, sings out, Good girl! or Good boy!
Which is an invocation, a conjuring.
Yes, hope is a four-legged thing
that meets you after a long day
of reports and budgets, shivers its tail,
helicopters on the floor, humps
your shins, circles and circles and circles
until, exhausted, it flops on its back,
waits for your hand to reach down,
scratch its belly until it pisses
all over you in joy.