September 19: "The Loon on Oak-Head Pond," Moonlit Walk, Puppy Paradise

Mary Oliver and a loon . . . 

The Loon on Oak-Head Pond

by:  Mary Oliver

cries for three days, in the gray mist.

cries for the north it hopes it can find.

plunges, and comes up with a slapping pickerel.

blinks its red eye.

cries again.

you come every afternoon, and wait to hear it.

you sit for a long time, quiet, under the thick pines,

in the silence that follows.

as though it were your own twilight.

as though it were your own vanishing song.

I just went for a moonlit walk and then I did what a lot of people do at the end of long and busy days--scrolled through my Facebook feed to see whose birthday it is, who experienced a loss, who ate something delicious for dinner.  It's a bad habit, and I know that Facebook reality is very different from real life.  However, those few moments every night keep me abreast of what's happening in the lives of people I know and love.

Tonight, I came across a post by a good friend who lost her beloved dog today, and it broke my heart.  My friend included about 50 candid shots of her beloved fur-child, from young doghood to old doghood.  For a few moments, I lost myself in the dog's soulful eyes and black-lipped smile.

If there's one poet who knows how to write about loss beautifully, it's Mary Oliver.  The word "cries" starts the first two lines of this poem.  That's a pretty good indication that death is close by, waiting to loom out of Oak-Head Pond, perhaps in the beak of the loon.  

Every morning for the past month or so, I've heard a loon calling to the rising sun.  (I live close to a small lake, so loons often summer near me.)  If you've never heard a loon's cry, you won't understand its gray mist and craving for north.  It's a sound that's filled with longing and lament.  At least for me.

Oliver doesn't identify the "you" in the second half of the poem--the one that visits every afternoon, sitting under the thick pines, waiting, waiting to hear that sound and the silence that follows it.  The you could be a lover.  A parent.  A child.  Or an old, beloved dog.

Lots of people write about pets crossing the rainbow bridge.  I prefer this version.  A dog in its twilight years, patiently sitting in the shade of a pine, listening to the loon sing its vanishing song.  This image gives me comfort because it's full of the lap of waves, smell of pine, and birdsong echoing across the pond.  It's dog paradise.

So, tonight, this post and this poem are for my friend, Amber, whose gentle giant of a dog is relaxing on the shores of Oak-Head Pond, beneath the needles and cones of a tree, listening patiently as a loon serenades him to puppy paradise.

Saint Marty does think that all dogs go to heaven.

March 18: Spot, Cocker Spaniel, Nick

Billy's home was empty.  His daughter Barbara was about to get married, and she and his wife had gone downstairs to pick out patterns for her crystal and silverware.  There was a note saying so on the table.  There were no servants.  People just weren't interested in careers in domestic service anymore.  There wasn't a dog, either. 

There used to be a dog named Spot, but he died.  So it goes.  Billy had liked Spot a lot, and Spot had liked him.

I had a dog once, like Billy.  A crazy Cocker Spaniel named Nick.  He was my wife's dog before we got married, and we inherited him.  Nick was not a well-behaved dog.  Protective.  Aggressive with strangers.  He would steal pizza off your plate and chew up shoes. 


Now, I know all of those things weren't Nick's fault.  He wasn't trained properly as a puppy, and that carried over into his doghood.  Nick could also be very loving.  Loved to sit in laps.  When I came home from work, he would wag his tail so hard that I thought he would helicopter away.

My wife and I had to make a difficult decision when my daughter was born.  Nick was fine when she was an infant and not mobile.  However, when she began to crawl and toddle, Nick got really nervous.  When she came into the room, Nick always eyed her suspiciously. I started having these dreams of Nick attacking my daughter.

Eventually, my wife and I decided to find Nick a new home.  We brought him to the Humane Society.  Told them that he would be a great dog for an older person, without small children in the house.  I petted Nick one last time.  Let him lick my face.  Then, I left.

I cried for an entire week. 

Now, I don't know to this day if we did the right thing.  My wife and I eventually found out that our daughter has severe allergies to animal hair and dander, so we would have eventually had to find Nick another home anyway.  But, every now and then, I think about him.

I imagine some older man picking him as a companion.  That he would go for long walks with the old man.  That he got fat because the old man fed him table scraps all the time.  That he would sleep at the foot of the old man's bed, snoring like he always did at night.

Saint Marty is thankful that he had a dog he liked once.  And that dog liked him.