the music in a dog
for Santa
My fingers long to play
gentle glissandos
over the molten copper of your fur,
and tease behind your ears
for a long contented groan like some low bassoon.
All you ever asked,
that we be there to receive
your solos of boundless love
and occasionally shelter you in our arms
from the celestial percussion of thunderstorms.
Bach's music in the background,
so often you sat patiently,
never critiquing,
never offering false assurance,
while I planned and fretted
at the computer,
and when a crescendo
of anthropoidal anxiety
shivered my soul,
your warm breath at my knee
was love's continuo
resolving worries into serenity.
And when I slouched up the steps,
dragging metallic dissonance home from the factory,
I could always see you jigging there,
perilously perched on the bookshelf
to glimpse out the high window,
long ears flipping,
long tongue flapping,
in the joy of your dance,
and the key in the lock
was your cue to commence
an antic hornpipe of howls
choreographed to end
with your head in my hand.
Music exists only in time,
but time ends all music,
and time at last,
first slowed, then stopped,
the merry metronome
of your tail.
By the cedar hedge
where the cardinal calls
may earth enfold you in
the endless symphony
of the seasons and the stars.
Vic
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