Jameson Parker sent Robinson Jeffers' wonderful tribute to his bulldog Grip. In part:
I hope than when you are lying
Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dear, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.
And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
But to me you were true.
You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.
And from Jutta in Germany, whose photos of Nhubia and Taalai often appear here, a photo she took of the old boyo here in his prime several years ago, one that made us laugh...
So sorry about your old Plummer. Here's a poem from Bill Collins to cheer you up.
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by Billy Collins
The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.
Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?
Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.
If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.
Having a large pack of canines of various ages, I have to go through this a lot--but the advantage of having a large pack of canines of various ages is that the others are all around for comfort and to keep you going. As I like to say, "so many dogs, so little time"....I recently unexpectedley lost my beloved Hawkeye, my Salmon hound, at only 10 years old, but Notches, the Black-And-Tan "foxhound" I did a guest blog about here at Querencia, and that I logically expected to lose awhile ago, but is still staggering about at 16!... And I had an amazing dream about ALL my dogs(past and present) recently, that fits well with this(sad) topic. In the dream I was wandering about, cloaked in a misty grey blanket, looking for my dogs. As I thought of each individual dog, regardless of when in my life I had had the dog, it would appear, head first and then materialize bodily from that light, foglike blanket I was wearing! That's when I realized(in the dream) that the "blanket" was the combined spirits of all my dogs, that I carried with me forever, wherever I went, and that I could conjure up each individual just by thinking of them. The symbolism of that dream was, indeed, as comforting as a blanket!(and always will be)- Yes, Plummer, weave yourself into the protective canine spirit blanket of the Bodio pack, forever!....L.B.
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