Doggie Wisdom

Percy (nine)

Mary Oliver

Your friend is coming I say

To Percy, and name a name

And he runs to the door, his

Wide mouth in its laugh-shape,

And waves, since he has one, his tail.

Emerson, I am trying to live,

As you said we must, the examined life.

But there are days I wish

There was less in my head to examine,

Not to speak of the busy heart.  How

Would it be to be Percy, I wonder, not

Thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward.

Dharma

Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example

of a life without encumbrance—

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she

would be,

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.