Dog Days

After the deed was done or maybe before: she mused "you're like my dog" an elegy a loving postcard mailed to me sprawled there summery spent beside her as she sketched her affection toward Rusty or was it Sandy maybe Rex his loyalty love obedience and companionship so I edged into sleep an afternoon nap against her arm her leg her side as she read, her Rolex off, her diamond stud earrings on the nightstand, cues for unshackling as a prelude to unbridled intimacy. So I gathered I knew what she meant by the canine compliment. I was fine with it not a slight not a condescension but a treasured tableau in her memory's slide show and now mine as well fast forward a decade plus and Doug is dying, everybody knew it would be the last day, a Friday, after Debby had told me the previous Sunday "get up there, he's not coming home, he wants to ask you something," now his last, and my last "goodbye, I love you." Doug in his hospital bed looked at me as I brimmed into tears and he said "it's all right it'll be all right" then he tousled my hair he ruffled the hair on my head as he would have to Divitt the same dog who nearly bit my arm off on the night of Bush v. Gore in 2000 because I grabbed his bone, Divitt, a perfect name echoing the divots of every weekend's rounds of golf, a so-called sport I never played, with Doug or anyone else. I stared into your eyes and I knew it was okay and would be after and forevermore. You asked me to "read something" at a memorial and who knew that request would be such a gift, such a gem, because we never so much as once even swung a golf club together, unlike all those other partners on the fairways and greens who I figured knew you more and deeper didn't they, so why me? Why ask me of all people sort of like what they say about Christ and the disciples he picked why me they all presumably said. Such a revelation, the first of that year, 2005, the discovery of death's secret surprise, death's wink and a nod, the magician's rabbit out of the black upside down top hat. Richard, speaking of golf, six months later, November, in Florida, "let's go hit some, go to the driving range," straw hats, blazing sun, gently kindly "hold your hands this way, yes no that's it, careful, slower, no that's fine" almost hit golfers in the nearby rough but that CLICK! oh God! the sound of it the jolt in the hands resonating echoing into the arms the soul. Richard my brother, we never said half brother, too weak too tired to swing, sitting on the bench, the blistering blaze of light, its merciless scorch. And this was the slide in the carousel, the slide show, freeze-framed, after his death, the ferry to the yonder shore, this the wallet-sized image, the frame of future sentiment and loss, your plantation straw hat the artifact of a Monday afternoon, the farewell in the dark Tuesday morning, you in your bed, did I say good bye or I love you, probably not, though we both knew, to find out later your childhood prayerbook and rosary beads were there under your pillow. Dogstar pointed tooth hair of the dog long in the tooth my life as a dog doggerel mongrel sobs and all that. Then, last year, Maggie put down, across the boulevard from where I sit, tapping keys in the battleship dun afternoon, her eye left open, where did she go, so quickly, invisibly, effortlessly, the hideous simplicity the reckless rudeness of death, to every man woman child dog or leaf, you me and everyone and everything else. I went into my car in the parking lot of the animal hospital. Hospital. Inhospitable Last Exit. A rainy Friday. I wept against the steering wheel. How can I ever leave this parking lot. What can I do. Where can I go. What do I do now. Where's that sought surprise. Under the Tuscan sun, the Syracuse rain.
 

gambol

I walked our dog in Burnet Park, where she gamboled in the snow, merrymaking and frolicking just for me, to give me a smile, as she sported in the fluffy lake effect snow. No. You're right. She did it for pure dog love, total abandon, canine self, yielding to the moment and the next the next the now.

Articles Found and Lost

It has been said, "Wear the world like a loose garment." Good advice, especially when it's hot and sticky. It's often wise to avoid chafing, with clothes or demeanor. I sometimes chafe, as word that sounds like "chase" with a lisp. Whoever came up with the loose-garment theory may have been thinking of saris or Hawaiian shirts or dashikis. This will sound strange, but I carry a piece of fabric in my right pants pocket. not a security blanket, no. It has to do with my glasses. They said don't use tissues to clean them. I believed them. The glasses makers provided me with a black silkish microfiber cloth, 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches, I just measured it, centimeters not listed on the ruler, with "DKNY Donna Karan New York" imprinted in silverish. But sometimes I lose it. So as back-up I cut up some old white T-shirts into pieces (smaller than the DKNY official issue). Mind you, I'm lucky if I clean my glasses twice a week. But they cost me a considerable expense so I must be terrified of scratching the lenses. I even bought a little bottle of spray cleaner for the glasses. I rarely use it. Well, I lost the black DKNY cloth, feeling like Leopold Bloom without Molly's panties in his pocket. I looked in all my pants. Again. And again. No success. I pretty much surrendered, gave up. Then this morning, panty cloth shows up in the right pocket of my green pants, one of the collection of pants I had checked repeatedly while they were hanging in the closet. The thought that maybe I really hadn't checked as thoroughly as I had presumed nearly sent me into manic and neurotic and compulsive searching for that recently lost money. Almost.

After all, it's just an article of would-be clothing.

Letting go is hard.

Letting go of people, places, or things. Articles. Article. It's a pleasant-sounding word, as if it were the smaller second cousin of art. In grammar, we have definite articles (the) and indefinite articles (a, an) (as well as partitive and zero articles).

Let me amend that earlier declaration: Letting go of people, places, things, and animals is hard.

My beloved Rosie, our faithful Golden Retriever, is becoming a zero article.

We learned today she has liver and spleen cancer.

Today, after a slow but pleasing walk (yesterday, she spooked a deer in the brush, in the city! and the deer pranced away across a field), I lay down with her, on the grass besides the women's softball game in Burnet Park. An overly warm May sunset. She was panting. I hypnotically caressed her; she moved her paw if I stopped, urging me to continue. I tearfully and softly told her I loved her and kissed her on her snout, the bridge of her thinning frame, her brown deep eyes sad and vacant. And trusting.

Those same eyes replied to me, "I know," and when the game abruptly ended we got up and walked home.

Articles? Rosie's the real article.

And this precious garment I surrender not readily.