today, in my poetry calendar, the poem of the day was "chester" by john koethe (i posted his poem before this one); my dog's name is chester--he was a street dog before he came into our lives, and is troubled, but doing better after 2+ years. there is no way i could have passed up the opportunity to write a response to this poem, so here it is...as always, i ask you to bear with me--i've never done this before now...thank you and be well:).
3
another day, and then another,
which is how i hope they will come:
with all good and no bad, please
a dog who won’t come near me or
the foot of my bed where dogs usually lie, i hear
not hating , just scared
and i have done nothing to deserve this treatment
or lack thereof , but he avoids me anyway
i know nothing of his memories, but mine are filled
with smiles and the occasional tribulations
i now face the trials, like the dog did before i knew him
he who won’t approach me or the foot of my bed.
we are similar creatures; we are two
to whom things did happen, and we are scared
not that more will happen, but that what happens
might be more reason to retreat
and we need reasons not to retreat
still, we are in constant retreat
but somehow making it from
morning to evening without the anxiety
caused by something we can't name
this is our luxury, and we never take it for granted
we are grateful
even if we can't always show it
and we try never to waste the good time
that others complicate, and we don’t ask “why?”
we often don’t want the answer
it is smarter to remain ignorant sometimes.
instead of running from what we cannot name,
we retreat into ourselves where we are completely
alone, even though we don’t think we wanted that
when we think back on those memories
before we were always scared--
so, we hold them close and know we are not alone.
i see myself in him
my searching eyes attempt to catch his
the cloudy one is the one that bears my reflection
and, as if he knows better, he averts the good eye.
he might just heal himself, if he stays his course
and he doesn’t want to see himself in me.
Posted by Alexis on April 29, 2008
Tags: Uncategorized
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