Dog Songs Read online

  SELECT TITLES ALSO BY MARY OLIVER

  POETRY

  A Thousand Mornings

  American Primitive

  Dream Work

  New and Selected Poems, Volume One

  White Pine

  The Leaf and the Cloud

  What Do We Know

  Why I Wake Early

  New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

  Swan

  PROSE

  Blue Pastures

  Winter Hours

  A Poetry Handbook

  Dog Songs

  Thirty-five

  Dog Songs

  and

  One Essay

  MARY OLIVER

  THE PENGUIN PRESS · NEW YORK · 2013

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA), 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia

  New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

  Copyright © Mary Oliver, 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  The credits constitute an extension of this copyright page.

  ISBN 978-1-101-63873-6

  Illustrations by John Burgoyne

  Book design by Claire Naylon Vaccaro

  For Anne Taylor and Martin Michaelson

  CONTENTS

  How It Begins

  How It Is with Us, and How It Is with Them

  If You Are Holding This Book

  Every Dog’s Story

  The Storm (Bear)

  Conversations

  Luke’s Junkyard Song

  Luke

  Her Grave

  Benjamin, Who Came from Who Knows Where

  The Dog Has Run Off Again

  Holding On to Benjamin

  The Poetry Teacher

  Bazougey

  Ropes

  Percy

  School

  Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night

  Time Passes

  Untitled

  Percy Wakes Me

  The Sweetness of Dogs

  Percy Speaks While I Am Doing Taxes

  Percy, Waiting for Ricky

  Percy (2002–2009)

  For I Will Consider My Dog Percy

  The First Time Percy Came Back

  Ricky Talks About Talking

  The Wicked Smile

  The Traveler

  Show Time

  A Bad Day

  Henry

  How a Lot of Us Become Friends

  You Never Know Where a Conversation Is Going to Go

  Dog Talk

  Note

  Credits

  HOW IT BEGINS

  A puppy is a puppy is a puppy.

  He’s probably in a basket with a bunch

  of other puppies.

  Then he’s a little older and he’s nothing

  but a bundle of longing.

  He doesn’t even understand it.

  Then someone picks him up and says,

  “I want this one.”

  HOW IT IS WITH US, AND HOW IT IS WITH THEM

  We become religious,

  then we turn from it,

  then we are in need and maybe we turn back.

  We turn to making money,

  then we turn to the moral life,

  then we think about money again.

  We meet wonderful people, but lose them

  in our busyness.

  We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.

  Steadfastness, it seems,

  is more about dogs than about us.

  One of the reasons we love them so much.

  IF YOU ARE HOLDING THIS BOOK

  You may not agree, you may not care, but

  if you are holding this book you should know

  that of all the sights I love in this world—

  and there are plenty—very near the top of

  the list is this one: dogs without leashes.

  EVERY DOG’S STORY

  I have a bed, my very own.

  It’s just my size.

  And sometimes I like to sleep alone

  with dreams inside my eyes.

  But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy

  and I wake and am afraid, though I don’t know why.

  But I’m no longer sleepy

  and too slowly the hours go by.

  So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon

  is shining on your face

  and I know it will be morning soon.

  Everybody needs a safe place.

  THE STORM (BEAR)

  Now through the white orchard my little dog

  romps, breaking the new snow

  with wild feet.

  Running here running there, excited,

  hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins

  until the white snow is written upon

  in large, exuberant letters,

  a long sentence, expressing

  the pleasures of the body in this world.

  Oh, I could not have said it better

  myself.

  CONVERSATIONS

  1.

  Said Bear, “I know I’m supposed to keep my eye

  on you, but it’s difficult the way you

  lag behind and keep talking to people.”

  Well, how can you be keeping your eye on me

  when you’re half a mile ahead?

  “True,” said Bear. “But I’m thinking of you

  all the time.”

  2.

  I had to go away for a few days so I called

  the kennel and made an appointment. I guess

  Bear overheard the conversation.

  “Love and company,” said Bear, “are the adornments

  that change everything. I know they’ll be

  nice to me, but I’ll be sad, sad, sad.”

  And pitifully he wrung his paws.

  I cancelled the trip.

  LUKE’S JUNKYARD SONG

  I was born in a junkyard,

  not even on a bundle of rags

  or the seat of an old wrecked car

  but the dust below.

  But when my eyes opened

  I could crawl to the edge and see

  the moving grass and the trees

  and this I began to dream on,

  though the worms were eating me.

  And at night through the twists of metal

  I could see a single star—one, not even two.

  Its light was a thing of wonder,

  and I learned something precious

  that would also be good for you.

  Though the worms kept biting and pinching

  I fell in love with this star.

  I stared at it every night—

  that light so clear and far.

  Listen, a junkyard puppy

  learns quickly how to dream.

  Listen, whatever you see and lo
ve—

  that’s where you are.

  LUKE

  I had a dog

  who loved flowers.

  Briskly she went

  through the fields,

  yet paused

  for the honeysuckle

  or the rose,

  her dark head

  and her wet nose

  touching

  the face

  of every one

  with its petals

  of silk,

  with its fragrance

  rising

  into the air

  where the bees,

  their bodies

  heavy with pollen,

  hovered—

  and easily

  she adored

  every blossom,

  not in the serious,

  careful way

  that we choose

  this blossom or that blossom—

  the way we praise or don’t praise—

  the way we love

  or don’t love—

  but the way

  we long to be—

  that happy

  in the heaven of earth—

  that wild, that loving.

  HER GRAVE

  She would come back, dripping thick water, from the

  green bog.

  She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin

  from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile—

  and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her cunning elbows,

  and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming perfect arch of her neck.

  It took four of us to carry her into the woods.

  We did not think of music,

  but anyway, it began to rain

  slowly.

  Her wolfish, invitational half-pounce.

  Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

  My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash

  of happiness as she barged

  through the pitch pines swiping my face with her

  wild, slightly mossy tongue.

  Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?

  He is wiser than that, I think.

  A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky.

  Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds

  think it is all their own music?

  A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you

  do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the

  trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

  Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill

  think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment

  of her long slumber?

  A dog can never tell you what she knows from the

  smells of the world, but you know, watching her,

  that you know

  almost nothing.

  Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think

  the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace

  of his own making?

  She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back,

  or wait for me, or be somewhere.

  Now she is buried under the pines.

  Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

  not to be angry.

  Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

  The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste

  of the infallible energies?

  How strong was her dark body!

  How apt is her grave place.

  How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

  Finally,

  the slick mountains of love break

  over us.

  BENJAMIN, WHO CAME FROM WHO KNOWS WHERE

  What shall I do?

  When I pick up the broom

  he leaves the room.

  When I fuss with kindling he

  runs for the yard.

  Then he’s back, and we

  hug for a long time.

  In his low-to-the-ground chest

  I can hear his heart slowing down.

  Then I rub his shoulders and

  kiss his feet

  and fondle his long hound ears.

  Benny, I say,

  don’t worry. I also know the way

  the old life haunts the new.

  THE DOG HAS RUN OFF AGAIN (BENJAMIN)

  and I should start shouting his name

  and clapping my hands,

  but it has been raining all night

  and the narrow creek has risen

  is a tawny turbulence is rushing along

  over the mossy stones

  is surging forward

  with a sweet loopy music

  and therefore I don’t want to entangle it

  with my own voice

  calling summoning

  my little dog to hurry back

  look, the sunlight and the shadows are chasing each other

  listen how the wind swirls and leaps and dives up and down

  who am I to summon his hard and happy body

  his four white feet that love to wheel and pedal

  through the dark leaves

  to come back to walk by my side, obedient.

  HOLDING ON TO BENJAMIN

  No use to tell him

  that he

  and the raccoon are brothers.

  You have your soft ideas about nature

  he has others,

  and they are full of his

  white teeth

  and lip that curls, sometimes,

  horribly.

  You love

  this earnest dog,

  but also you admire the raccoon

  and Lord help you in your place

  of hope and improbables.

  To the black-masked gray one:

  Run! you say,

  and just as urgently, to the dog:

  Stay!

  and he won’t or he will,

  depending

  on more things than I could name.

  He’s sure he’s right

  and you, so tangled in your mind,

  are wrong,

  though patient and pacific.

  And you are downcast.

  And it’s his eyes, not yours,

  that are clear and bright.

  THE POETRY TEACHER

  The university gave me a new, elegant

  classroom to teach in. Only one thing,

  they said. You can’t bring your dog.

  It’s in my contract, I said. (I had

  made sure of that.)

  We bargained and I moved to an old

  classroom in an old building. Propped

  the door open. Kept a bowl of water

  in the room. I could hear Ben among

  other voices barking, howling in the

  distance. Then they would all arrive—

  Ben, his pals, maybe an unknown dog

  or two, all of them thirsty and happy.

  They drank, they flung themselves down

  among the students. The students loved

  it. They all wrote thirsty, happy poems.

  BAZOUGEY

  Where goes he now, that dark little dog

  who used to come down the road barking and shining?

  He’s gone now, from the world of particulars,

  the singular, the visible.

  So, that deepest sting: sorrow. Still,


  is he gone from us entirely, or is he

  a part of that other world, everywhere?

  Come with me into the woods where spring is

  advancing, as it does, no matter what,

  not being singular or particular, but one

  of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.

  See how the violets are opening, and the leaves

  unfolding, the streams gleaming and the birds

  singing. What does it make you think of?

  His shining curls, his honest eyes, his

  beautiful barking.

  ROPES

  IN THE OLD DAYS dogs in our town roamed freely. But the old ways changed.

  One morning a puppy arrived in our yard with a length of rope hanging from his collar. He played with our dogs; eventually he vanished. But the next morning he showed up again, with a different rope attached. This happened for a number of days—he appeared, he was playful and friendly, and always accompanied by a chewed-through rope.

  Just at that time we were moving to another house, which we finished doing all in one evening. A day or so later, on a hunch, I drove back to the old house and found him lying in the grass by our door. I put him in the car and showed him where our new house was. “Do your best,” I said.

  He stayed around for a while, then was gone. But there he was the next morning at the new house. Rope dangling. Later that day his owner appeared—with his papers from the Bideawee home, and a leash. “His name is Sammy,” she said. “And he’s yours.”

  As Sammy grew older he began to roam around the town and, as a result, began to be caught by the dog officer. Eventually, of course, we were summoned to court, which, we learned quickly, was not a place in which to argue. We were told to build a fence. Which we did.

  But it turned out that Sammy could not only chew through ropes, he could also climb fences. So his roaming continued.

  But except for the dog officer, Sammy never got into trouble; he made friends. He wouldn’t fight with other dogs, he just seemed to stay awhile in someone’s yard and, if possible, to say hello to the owners. People began to call us to come and get him before the dog officer saw him. Some took him into their houses to hide him from the law. Once a woman on the other end of town called; when I got there she said, “Can you wait just a few minutes? I’m making him some scrambled eggs.”