nothing to hold onto

It's the title of my book, and my life's theme, which I may have brought into being by titling the book, or I may, idiot savant that I am, have known in the primitive recesses of my reptile brain the deep truth of all our lives - we ain't here very long folks, whether or not we are facile with punctuation.

White sky over mercury colored lake this morning, the sun a distantly glowing necco wafer in the upper right hand corner of my window. My great dane and I tracked deer along the abandoned county road this morning with the idea of inviting them over for dog treats and frolicking or anyway frolicking. Cruiser is in no way connected with her primitive brain. She has no survival instincts. A few summers ago we saw a cougar and her impulse was to run towards it, possibly with intent to body slam, which she and her best friend, an airedale, now deceased, used as a greeting, along with threatening-sounding growling that made small dog owners suspicious of them at the offleash park. But enough of Henry James. Back to the cougar - I believe it stalked us all the mile and a half back home. My impulse was not to turn my back on it and to hold Cruiser close to me on the leash, the both of us looking very large while backing inconspicuously away from the cougar's perch on a rock outcropping.

Another time, she and I encountered a doe and her two fawns. Cruiser, off leash that morning, raced at them. One fawn tore away from his mother across the asphalt road and Cruiser caught up to it. The fawn collapsed to the gravel as though it was one of those tent pole structures you can take down by pushing in one rib slightly - poof! the thing dropped. As it buckled, it let out a siren-loud bleat, a cry of pain and desolation so vivid and unexpected that both Cruiser and I bolted down the road another couple of miles before turning back to see if the fawn was still alive. It was gone. I had been rehearsing calls to Fish and Wildlife or Wildlife and Game or whoever one calls when one's domestic animal has done away with one of nature's creatures. My story and I believe it was going to be that the fawn had a heart attack; Cruiser never touched it.

I am thinking animal stories this morning in response to the npr interview yesterday with the fellow who wrote a best seller about his bad dog, a golden retreiver. Perhaps there is room in poetry for a best seller about my dog. Perhaps there is room in poetry for a best seller is extremely bad form, and I expect to receive a rebuke or rescinding of my poetic license any moment.