scarf it up

A parade of scarves. Each on a sapling branch. Winter. Franklin Square. Solar and Plum. Fuzzy scarf. Skinny stringly one. Double-crocheted maroon orange olivered yellow lavender scarf. That one. Reserved. Proffered. Homeless. Plastic bag fastened with a safety pin. Inside it, a piece of notebook paper, roughly 3 x 5, lined in back, crayoned: "You're Blessed You will all ways Be" in cursive within three cumulus clouds. Shiny sun upper right. Blue sky. Green grass and trees, the bottom landscape.

Pick it up.

Wear it.

Keep it.

Why not.

For now.

Gleðilegt nýtt ár!

ad newseam

Since the time I followed baseball box scores, at the age of six, I've been a news hound. I devoured something we called "the news." My older brother and I would hungrily await the afternoon delivery of The (Stamford) Advocate, hand it to our father, just home from work at the factory, and then respectfully wait for him to drop the sports section (or any other section, for that matter) after he finished reading it. "Current Events," another name for news, was always my best subject in school all the years before high school, and I was the best in that subject, long before trivia games that featured "current events" became popular. Lately? Not so much. As John Lennon lamented in song, "I read the news today, oh boy." Oh boy is right. What does the Gospel of Matthew say, "wars and rumors of war"? Oh, we've gone beyond wars, rumors of wars, all right. Beheadings, slaughter, burnings, torture, suicide bombings, and myriad forms of mayhem and carnage. Yes, these woes are not new to the human form except in the particulars. But lately I want to avert my eyes . . . and ears and so forth. It does not mean I want to be oblivious to the suffering and travails of the human condition. Though when I was younger, it used to be that this knowledge, these informations, somehow led to more empathy on my part, whether I was moved to action or thought. Was that so? Me, a news nut. Driving around in the car, always sure to catch the NPR news on the hour, if I'm listening to the radio, and not a music CD. Not so much. Not today. Burying my head in the sand, you say? Sounds like the latest atrocity.

shoots shots shoots

after the meridian

shoots spied at the base

of the beech

pale stalks

not even verdant

harbingers

just a bath of sun

and presto

lookie here

news of a shooting spree

shots fired

near Stuttgart

origin: stud garden, we are told

life lived

a few letters

transposed

reposed

all the difference

Dogged by Loyalty

So, in the end, after failing rapidly in the space of a Saturday afternoon, she lay down at the bottom of the stairs. She was unfazed and unexcited by a chunk of meat. Her gaze met an unknown country past the horizon. She was in a limbo of lethargy. I lay down beside her, caressing her. Her ribs rippled under my hand. Upstairs, my younger daughter's crying threatened to escalate into an unmanageable storm. 'Rosie seems cold,' I said. 'Why not make her feel better by putting this little green blanket of yours on her? Make her feel cozy.' And that's what we did, along with a little pillow, along with hypnotic petting, caressing. Somehow sleep descended on all of us, at times, here and there, fitfully. We were certain we would find a deceased dog Sunday morning. We did not. She rallied a bit. But of course it was just a stage. The vet had left his cellphone number in case things had turned bad. We called. He called back to say he would meet us at his office; he was about two hours away. As if to make it harder, Rosie had come upstairs and lay by my daughter's bed. I took a nap, waiting for a call back from the veterinarian. She bravely said her goodbyes (the unclear antecedent for the pronoun is okay; 'she' and 'her' are interchangeable as to whom they refer here). My daughter went to stay with neighbors. I put Rosie's leash on upstairs, feeling vaguely like a sombre hangman. She almost stumbled on the stairs, confirming her accelerating weakness. A deception here, as if going for a beloved walk. Into the car she went, fairly enthusiastically. We had to lift her onto the back seat. My wife sat with her. Rosie sat on my daughter's emerald blanket. Pretty eager, getting out of the car. Then, as if it all dawned on her, resistance. We picked her up. Our voices were soft. The doctor asked me to sign a form. I did. My wife tearfully said goodbye. I said I'd stay, at least for a while. My thought is this: she was loyal to me, to us; I shall be loyal to her. I shall not abandon her. He shaved her left paw. He said he'd give her an IV. As he's putting the needle in ever so imperceptibly, she does not even flinch. Through my curtain of tears, I hold her and tell her I love her and gently reassure her. I ask the doctor about an IV but then it dawns on me: this is the IV, of course. All the liquid in the chamber enters her. I ask the doctor if she is conscious as I look into her brown eyes. 'I think she's gone,' he says softly. His stethoscope and his eyes verify it. 'Sometimes their eyes close if a muscle contracts,' he says, when I point out her eyes were still gazing into that unknown geography. My voice and eyes are filled with tears but I compose myself so as not to collapse into an undignified heap. I am willing to wager that a veterinarian sees more grown men cry than a funeral director. Outside, the bright sunlight of Pentecost. In the car, my wife's hand. My bark of a sob.

And so, farewell to you who knew my rages and secrets, my exaltations and lamentations, on our evening and nighttime walks, through billowing snow (you delighted in burrowing in it) and scarlet sunsets, locusts and lunar light. Farewell, my loyal lovely, farewell.

'The water is wide
I can't cross o'er...

Build me a boat that will carry two...'