Tag Archive for: dogs

Two Poems, “Creature Comforts” and “Love’s Mantle”

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I’m delighted that under the rubric “Two Poems to End the Winter, The Seaboard Review of Books has published two poems today, one of mine, “Creature Comforts,” and another, “Love’s Mantle,” by my friend and agency client Alexis Greene. “Creature Comforts” explores nature, the animal kingdom, the wild, and our place in the world vis-a-vis animals. It’s composed in rhyming verse, and was written as a series of reflections that came to me one day some years ago when I was on a walk with my black Labrador dog, Noah, pictured here, who was a boon companion of mine for a long time. It was a very rainy day and Noah sniffed a rabbit. That’s what moved me to write the poem.

“Love’s Mantle” by Alexis Greene explores themes adjacent to those in my poem, though in a different and distinctive manner. I believe she was moved to write it this past winter while she’s been contending with an illness, and I think she sees this poem as a kind of valedictory statement of hers, about life and how she views the world. I’ll add that earlier this year, Alexis published a personal essay about her lifelong experiences of live theater on this website, and on the website The Arts Fuse.

Below are the first two stanzas of “Creature Comforts”:

The tide washed over the driveway
Stirs in me a notion
How in such a live way,
Rain may play at being an ocean.

The asphalt sluice is shined a fluid black
While snow on the lawn holds one sogg’d rabbit track.
Snout wet, Noah sniffs the clue of rodent visitation
And careens in hope for a sign of the hare’s habitation.

Here are the first two stanzas of “Love’s Mantle”:

Snow descends in icy flakes,
Coating the hills and drifting ’round lakes.
Covering houses and fields and trees,
Snow whitens the world as far as you can see.

Cold to the touch.
Wet on your skin,
Snow, winter’s blanket,
Protects the life within.

Thanks for reading the rest of “Creature Comforts” and “Love’s Mantle” at The Seaboard Review of Books, linked to here.

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NYC Pet Owner Grooms Dog in Park, Lets Fur Fly

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Walking from the #5 bus stop at the Fireman’s Memorial opposite Riverside Park in my Manhattan neighborhood on a recent morning I saw a woman combing her dog on one of the site’s marble benches and letting the white fluff fall where it might. Walking past the bench, I picked a tuft of the furry detritus off my wool coat and asked her why she was making no effort at containing the mess. She said, “Oh, don’t you know, the birds use it in their nests.” Having in the past encountered this form of urban littering–and the same birds’ nest rationalization, a seeming urban legend subscribed to by some dog owners–I once asked a NYC park ranger about pet grooming in the parks. He answered that regardless of whether or not animal fur is used in birds’ nests, the stuff stays around forever and that they do ticket pet owners for such carelessness. On Thursday, I told the woman that actually she was littering and could be ticketed for it, and asked that she make the effort to clean it up. She ignored me and went on combing her dog, with white hair flying around like so many dandelion puffs. I walked away stiff-jawed, gobsmacked at how willing to break the urban social contract some city dwellers are.

I have heard some New Yorkers say they believe that commuters who clip their fingernails on public transit, a startling act, if you’ve never observed it, or heard it, may be the most anti-social conduct engaged in by our fellow urbanites. On the other hand, this pet-grooming–rationalized with the self-serving assertion that they’re somehow helping birds thrive–is, outside of violent crime, in the running for the most selfish and outrageous of all urban behaviors.

I think it’s fair for readers here to wonder why I’ve bothered chronicling such behavior. I’m not sure, except for the fact that I kind of still can’t believe a fellow NYer would do something like this, and then bat away responsibility with such an airy rationalization. By sharing it and calling attention to it, I’m hopeful it may lead to more social opprobrium. Sadly, though, this woman was incapable of embarrassment or shame, always a problem when anti-social behavior is afoot.

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Dogs Giving Comfort in Newtown

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A K-9 team of comfort dogs has been flown from Chicago to Newtown, CT to be available to grieving children and adults to be petted and hugged for consolation in the wake of the mass murders there last Friday. As reported by Naomi Nix in the Chicago Tribune, ten golden retrievers, including the dogs pictured here–Chewie, Ruthie, and Luther–are now in the small town, provided by Lutheran Church Charities. Nix’s story adds,

The dogs have been helpful even to those without children in Sandy Hook Elementary School . . . organizers said. “I asked [one man] how he is doing. He just kind of teared up and said: ‘This year, I’ve lost five loved ones and now this happened,’  Hetzner said. ”The whole town is suffering.“ The comfort-dog initiative first started in 2008 at Northern Illinois University after a gunman killed five students. . . . [It] was so successful that weeks later students petitioned university leadership to bring comfort dogs back to campus, Hetzner said. The initiative has grown from a handful of dogs in the Chicago area to 60 dogs in six different states, he said. Since then, the dogs have traveled across the nation to comfort people in the aftermath of major tragedies such as, Hurricane Sandy, and the tornado that hit Joplin, MO. On Monday, the dogs plan to be with Sandy Hook students for after-school activities.

Amid this tragedy, it gladdens my heart that these dogs will be in the town to be held and hugged, to give back what dogs do give, unconditional love. H/t Michael Rosenwald of the Washington Post who tweeted this earlier.

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