The Lives of Dogs and Men

August 22 2019

A white plastic cone

encloses her head.

Like a megaphone on legs

she stumbles about, pointing randomly

emitting insistent little whines.

And gazes out pathetically

with a confused accusing look.

In the fatalistic way

of dumb animals,

adjusting to circumstance

with stoic acceptance.

But also questioning

why I haven't made it better

as I've always done before;

when she was quilled, and suffering

or tired and hungry

or in need of love.

Like a sloppy drunk

my lithe athletic dog

is pin-balling around,

crashing into table legs and banisters

hanging-up on doors.

Then dropping down in bed

with the world-weary sigh

of the doggedly resigned.

Isn't this

how we all go through life,

pummelled by circumstance

both inexplicable

and beyond our control?

But by living in the moment

she has saved herself.

While we ruminate, speculate

pick away at scabs.

Imagine boot-strapping ourselves;

the essential human conceit

that with enough agency and will

we can master our fate.

She arrived at the vet,

then seconds later, it must have seemed

awakened groggily

constrained and in pain.

Claustrophobic, in this white plastic shell,

with its vaguely chemical smell

and tightly cinched collar.

But such are the mysteries

this existence brings

to the lives of dogs and men.

Like a sudden awakening

to bright fluorescent lights

and strangers hovering

in some cold clinical space.

Is this how it felt

when we took our first breath?

And does the end come

like being put to sleep?

Ours, who are too aware of death,

and hers

in all its blissful naivete?

And are we just as blind

bumbling through life?

Not just the arrogance of youth

but the blinkered wisdom

of hard old men,

the physical limits

of sight and sound and smell?

Our vision constricted, just like hers,

oblivious

to how much we fail to see

the crucial truths we miss.