Basset Hounds

Few photographs recorded my North Carolina childhood. This inch-square black and white is my grandfather with two basset hound puppies, Jack and Jill, hunting dogs acquired when I was a toddler. Jill died young and Jack was gun-shy, so he became my companion, both of us left to our devices in a small fenced yard off my grandparents' kitchen in the afternoons. I think I imprinted on Jack. I was a quiet child with a sensitive nose, a long face, and a compassionate nature, and my primal lessons came from watching Jack. This past weekend, dazzled by hummingbirds and swifts, I felt again how marvelous quick things are. And how I am not like them. 

Basset Hound Lessons

In a universe of things that hum flit swoop,
eye-dazzle and ear-buzz, skitter and flash,
I am of those who amble and pause. Deliberate, 
heavy of hip, thick-legged and kind-hearted,
I am earth-bound, broad-beamed and generous 
as a milk cow. I ruminate, davening.

My gift is stillness. Grateful and full of honey, I marvel
at the quick and the dead. I learned from a basset hound 
to lumber, led by my nose to sniff the terrors of prey: leaping fox, 
ravaging owl. Pray for the weak. Hound my totem, model for
heave of bone and quiet heart, you taught me howl and yearn, 
you held in your sorrowful eyes a lifetime of disappearance, 

a world ticked and enlivened by all that arises, flickers, jiggles,
and vanishes. Your nose quivered for every vanishing thing.