CALL ME BELOVED

We arrived while the world was freezing over
and took the tour, two weeks worth of living
already creeping onto the walls like ivy –
pushing out the remnants of the lives left behind.

The dog buried his head under the coffee table,
tilting left and right to see me from a new angle, but
I am all flailing arms and booming sounds, to a puppy –
ancient instinctual visceral fear made flesh.

I taught him to bark – now out from under the table –
a proud assertion of his doghood. I laughed, remembering
a mantra I carried for two years. The buddha is a dog
discovering itself – I was contented and humbled.
A hound must be a hound.

2015 Poem-A-Week 08: February 19 – February 25