This is Rosie....

.... a young Border collie.

I think maybe it is the optimism of dogs
that Lucky, a Border Collie, taught me
long ago when I was a child,
that moves me, without warning,
to crying and laughing in some kind of daft combination.

On the farm where I was born we had no electricity.
When my Father (a lovely man sober, a devil with whisky) was drunk
it was best to keep out of his way so we'd all scatter to our hiding places
and mine was at the far end of the byre where the dogs lived.

And in the winter it would be in darkness
and I'd go into the sounds of the cattle munching and breathing,
and the soft scratchy wanderings of the farm rats in the stone walls,
and the rustling in the rafters of the wild farm cats,
and go in beside the dogs, into their warm muddy straw,
and into the damp Border Collie Dog smells of Lucky,
the cleverest Sheepdog I have ever known

(who did not seem to think of my father
when he was drunk and dangerous
as the same person as the man she worked with,
as if they were of one mind,
when he was sober, and would try to attack him and bite him
whenever she smelled the drink and rage.
So then we used to have to lock her up to stop her protecting us,
in case she harmed him, or he her,
because if either had it would have broken both their hearts)

and she always seemed to have six or seven new pups
(I think that she, maybe, also considered me as one)
and in their milky puppy smell,
and in the steamy fuggy warmth of all these homely creatures,
and in this deepest peacefull noisy darkness,
I'd sleep sleeps so secure,
so without fear,
that they have lasted all my life....