and when they smile, it is your smile
with teeth as white as pitcher-cream.
Like you, the dogs do not speak
because what they want cannot be put in words.
With eyes like November noon-dusk,
they radiate need and knock my heart over
low enough to be carried off and cached.
In frost-dark, I am the Moon,
and the dogs are rings around me.
We howl at every kindness because we know
it isn't freeze that makes us flinch, but thaw.
Like the dogs, I carry Winter in my mouth,
and when I smile, it is your smile
like a collar around my tongue
from a Master who wanted me
silent, but devoted, and other such prideful notions.
______
Oh how I love dogs, and love love love this Shay! Too many wonderful lines to quote, but the second stanza stole my heart!
ReplyDeleteWhat a joy to have met you in this universe, to be able to read your words. ❤
ReplyDeleteYou have knocked me out with that second stanza--though I felt it coming in the first. I can't say how much I like the first two lines of it, and "...eyes like November noon-dusk.." why has no one thought of that perfect description before? Because they are not you, with your astonishing, unique gift for mood and image. The last stanza is bloodcurdlingly spot on for me, and raised the hairs on the back of my neck. This is just out of the park, Shay, and possibly the universe. Forgive the gush, but if anything deserved it, it's this.
ReplyDelete"...as white as pitcher-cream." There were other lines that bowled me over, but that was the first one that hit me.
ReplyDeleteI got a friend a pair of socks that says, "People I'd like to meet: 1. dogs"
Dogs are soooo much better than people so much of the time.
Wooooooooow! You had me at the title, but there is so much more. I LOVE "eyes like November noon-dusk" and, especially, "we howl at every kindness because we know it isnt freeze that makes us flinch, but thaw." Truer words were never written. LOVED this poem. Dogs got into my poem today too.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a touching read.. both for mind and heart. I cannot think of a time in my life that has not had a dog in it, nor can I say I have been loved more by any other living creature than by them.
ReplyDeleteSimply wonderful!
ReplyDeleteWe can find nothing closer to unconditional love as that of a dog.
They do not care, one bit, about anything but loving.