Rufus

Aug 22 2020

When Rufus was a new pup

we would hike through the woods

with all the other dogs.

And while she was thrilled

just to be among them

she was mostly ignored.

It was a golden fall

and I recall every day as perfect,

sunlight slanting through the trees

and a soft carpet of leaves

underfoot.

She would dash ahead

on her stubby legs

until she was exhausted;

fearless, in her naïveté

and in a constant state of wonder.

And I would walk behind

my little brown dumpling,

her excited tail erect

and her round pink butthole

staring me in the face;

cute, but unbecoming

and decidedly impolite.

Until she tired.

When I would lie supine

on the forest floor

and she would cuddle against my chest;

eyes drifting shut

breaths coming quickly.

And in a couple of seconds

she was out,

slipping innocently into sleep

with an ease I could only envy.

Parents always tell me

how soon their kids grow up,

how early life

seems all a blur.

Which is what's best about a dog —

they get big even faster than us

and then they grow old

but they never really grow up.

Rufus,

my girl dog who has a boy's name

but doesn't know the difference.

Rufus,

who doesn't care what anybody thinks

about her private parts

or bother with secrets.

She still walks

waggling her behind

with her tail held high.

And I still call her my little dumpling butthole.

Even though

she is now a big dog;

who has learned to be civilized,

and is not so surprised by the world,

and can easily

outrun us all.

As I was re-reading my last poem, Skookum, I noticed the lost opportunity for even more word-play in the first stanza: the obvious word “cuddly”; and then my pet name, which was (and is) “little dumpling butthole”. Except, as I started to write, I realized that I'd somehow dumbly conflated my two dogs, and had unwittingly started a poem about Rufus I never intended to write. Congenitally averse to waste, of course, I couldn't just leave it alone. And I'm glad I didn't. Because Rufus deserves her own poem. And because I feel so gratified to have memorialized in words that truly golden fall and our first explorations together.