I see my dog, stolid as a clam,
slumped in the day’s demand and
flat unconscious of his breed’s
statistics: a longer run of puppyhood
(three years, some say, to two); a
shorter span of livelihood—ten years,
I pray, to twelve. Along the way we
calculate the fetchings of a stick.
My dad had Walter, cockapoo,
who played a part in wild, unfurling
prayers. I was not there when
Walter died, but maybe thought of him
when, ten years later, dear Dad
did too, chipper than a clam, of course,
yet torn because his Godly house
was all asunder (politics) and his next
dog Homer, springer spaniel, had
run beneath a truck. I had witnessed
such when I was small, tracking
sugar beet rumbles along our gravel road:
Leo (the lion), our golden retriever,
felt duty-bound to chase those soirees
down. I’m sure the Children’s TV
Workshop played on sanguinely while
Leo literally coughed up his guts,
writhing in the brokenness of untold
bones. Now I see my dog, flat-coat
retriever, with nothing in my mind to
contravene. We have no trucks here
to track down; we wallow in our easy-going
town. We’ll live a dozen years or more,
depending on the sundry sticks we’ll fetch.
And, for you, lost Leo, Walter, poor
naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are:
we’ll live upon the promise of the
pelting of this pitiless storm, not more
potent than the heavens more just.
Dad loved King Lear. And, thus,
I’ll walk my dog in never-fledgling fear.
He has, of yet, no progeny. I have
such blessings I could never put to any
ledger. I’ll walk the dog for his sake
more than mine. He’ll walk and fetch to
satisfy a grander sense of time.
Wondering too what you remember of Dad remembering Walter's demise. I was very much a part of it. Here's the story: Sir Walter had two homes, Dad's and the Letnesses, and he bounced back and forth a few times. The Letnesses had him first and gave him to Dad when he was still a pup, but then one day the dog ran the several miles back to the Letness farm. After several journeys and retrievals, at one point Dad gave Walter back to them for good, but not for long, as one day Walter found his way back to Bejou. He liked both homes, I guess, and both owners seemed willing to keep the door open for him. But it may have been all this running around that led to his ultimate demise: worms. No, they didn't kill him directly, but in a community where veterinarians treated only cows and pigs (we had no James Herriott that I knew of) Dad decided there was only one sure way to address the problem. Dad asked my friend Eddie Charpentier and I to take him out to the fields west of town. Eddie had the gun, I think it was a 20/20 rifle. I had gone rabbit hunting with Ed a few times, and had shot this rifle myself now and then, but when Ed offered to let me take the shot I declined. We walked out to the field together - it was fall, post harvest, no more than 50 yards into the straw stubble at the edge of town - we had a little difficulty getting Walter to not be at our heels in the end, and then to obediently stand a few yards in front of us, but he did. Ed gave me one last offer, and again I declined. Ed hesitated too. Walter looked back at us, surely unaware of what would happen next but also seeming to sense our own somberness. But he stood still, and Ed took the opportunity. The shot was clean, between the eyes, and Walter didn't seem to suffer.
ReplyDeleteI have no poem for this. We left him there without a burial, and my last picture of Walter remains, to this day, his looking back at us with black button eyes, wondering why...
This account is important, and I'm glad my memory wasn't too far off: I had forgotten the worms but knew this was a euthanasia of sorts. I always like Eddie--he took me (and Josh?) fishing streamside once, fun time. It's interesting you mention James Herriott, because around that time I was contemplating veterinary practice as something to pursue. Joey may be interested in that now, or med school generally. I don't recall the Letnesses--did they have kids my age? At any rate, Walter was a ragamuffin that added to the nostalgia of coming up north, caving in the basement, playing pool, enjoying visits of all sorts, feeling alive and back to roots. The name on the list of dogs we shouldn't forget is Homer, the pup Calvin Ringstad imposed on Dad to get him to stop smoking, which he did--until Homer was no more. Of the half-dozen reasons I appreciate Dad being buried where he is, it's that he and Homer took that road once or twice a day for a healthy year or two. There was an Ojibwe man at the end of it, I had met in passing, but Dad talked with him regularly enough. Homer had a decent role in leading Dad home.
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