This one was inspired by a something I heard the American poet Billy Collins say.
Rescue Dogs
“I tell my poetry workshop students, if you’re stuck in a poem, just have a dog come in.”
Billy Collins, Chautauqua Institution, 2009
I picture a climbing party of novice poets,
trapped on a narrow, wind-battered ledge.
Tied together at the waist by an overextended
metaphor, they collapse and gasp in the thin air
of abstraction, crying out for help.
At that moment, a Saint Bernard,
large pawed and panting,
scrambles over ice and rock
to offer the climbers what they need -
the chipped and weathered oaken cask
of concrete images hanging from his furry neck.
Or I imagine a lone poet, lost
in deep woods of his own devising
as he tries to follow Dante or Frost,
who have left no breadcrumbs or broken branches.
Disoriented, he stumbles over a hidden meaning
and falls into an arcane abyss.
At that moment, his faithful collie
races barking to the farmhouse
where the mother, holding a dish towel, says,
“She’s trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah,” the father scowls and strokes his chin.
“Timmy’s fallen down that damn well again.”
He spits in the barnyard dust, then wipes
his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I told him to quit messing around with allegory.”
At this moment, my dog Snuffles,
a shepherd-hound refugee
from Death Row, looks up at me
with the hurt but hopeful
eyes of the once abandoned.
I rise from my desk. Her tail sweeps
the floor as I scratch her head and then
offer her the tethered freedom of the leash.
She is once again delighted
the world is just beyond our door –
and she can lead me through it.
Rescue Dogs
“I tell my poetry workshop students, if you’re stuck in a poem, just have a dog come in.”
Billy Collins, Chautauqua Institution, 2009
I picture a climbing party of novice poets,
trapped on a narrow, wind-battered ledge.
. Tied together at the waist by an overextended
metaphor, they collapse and gasp in the thin air
of abstraction, crying out for help.
At that moment, a Saint Bernard,
large pawed and panting,
scrambles over ice and rock
to offer the climbers what they need -
the chipped and weathered oaken cask
of concrete images hanging from his furry neck.
Or I imagine a lone poet, lost
in deep woods of his own devising
as he tries to follow Dante or Frost,
who have left no breadcrumbs or broken branches.
Disoriented, he stumbles over a hidden meaning
and falls into an arcane abyss.
At that moment, his faithful collie
races barking to the farmhouse
where the mother, holding a dish towel, says,
“She’s trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah,” the father scowls and strokes his chin.
“Timmy’s fallen down that damn well again.”
He spits in the barnyard dust, then wipes
his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I told him to quit messing around with allegory.”
At this moment, my dog Snuffles,
a shepherd-hound refugee
from Death Row, looks up at me
with the hurt but hopeful
eyes of the once abandoned.
I rise from my desk. Her tail sweeps
the floor as I scratch her head and then
offer her the tethered freedom of the leash.
She is once again delighted
the world is just beyond our door –
and she can lead me through it.
Rescue Dogs
“I tell my poetry workshop students, if you’re stuck in a poem, just have a dog come in.”
Billy Collins, Chautauqua Institution, 2009
I picture a climbing party of novice poets,
trapped on a narrow, wind-battered ledge.
Tied together at the waist by an overextended
metaphor, they collapse and gasp in the thin air
of abstraction, crying out for help.
At that moment, a Saint Bernard,
large pawed and panting,
scrambles over ice and rock
to offer the climbers what they need -
the chipped and weathered oaken cask
of concrete images hanging from his furry neck.
Or I imagine a lone poet, lost
in deep woods of his own devising
as he tries to follow Dante or Frost,
who have left no breadcrumbs or broken branches.
Disoriented, he stumbles over a hidden meaning
and falls into an arcane abyss.
At that moment, his faithful collie
races barking to the farmhouse
where the mother, holding a dish towel, says,
“She’s trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah,” the father scowls and strokes his chin.
“Timmy’s fallen down that damn well again.”
He spits in the barnyard dust, then wipes
his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I told him to quit messing around with allegory.”
At this moment, my dog Snuffles,
a shepherd-hound refugee
from Death Row, looks up at me
with the hurt but hopeful
eyes of the once abandoned.
I rise from my desk. Her tail sweeps
the floor as I scratch her head and then
offer her the tethered freedom of the leash.
She is once again delighted
the world is just beyond our door –
and she can lead me through it.
Rescue Dogs
“I tell my poetry workshop students, if you’re stuck in a poem, just have a dog come in.”
Billy Collins, Chautauqua Institution, 2009
I picture a climbing party of novice poets,
trapped on a narrow, wind-battered ledge.
. Tied together at the waist by an overextended
metaphor, they collapse and gasp in the thin air
of abstraction, crying out for help.
At that moment, a Saint Bernard,
large pawed and panting,
scrambles over ice and rock
to offer the climbers what they need -
the chipped and weathered oaken cask
of concrete images hanging from his furry neck.
Or I imagine a lone poet, lost
in deep woods of his own devising
as he tries to follow Dante or Frost,
who have left no breadcrumbs or broken branches.
Disoriented, he stumbles over a hidden meaning
and falls into an arcane abyss.
At that moment, his faithful collie
races barking to the farmhouse
where the mother, holding a dish towel, says,
“She’s trying to tell us something.”
“Yeah,” the father scowls and strokes his chin.
“Timmy’s fallen down that damn well again.”
He spits in the barnyard dust, then wipes
his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I told him to quit messing around with allegory.”
At this moment, my dog Snuffles,
a shepherd-hound refugee
from Death Row, looks up at me
with the hurt but hopeful
eyes of the once abandoned.
I rise from my desk. Her tail sweeps
the floor as I scratch her head and then
offer her the tethered freedom of the leash.
She is once again delighted
the world is just beyond our door –
and she can lead me through it.
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