The Heaven of Animals

(Arjun's grave beside our garden)

I found James Dickey's poetry one Friday night in the Wesleyan College Library. Just about everybody was out on dates, so I had the place to myself, including the whole American poetry section. That's where I first read The Heaven of Animals, which remains one of my favorite Dickey poems. I thought of it again last night after reading Vicki Lane's post on her blog (see sidebar) about her "sweet Bear" having died under the willow where she liked to sleep. After the loss of our sweet Arjun, that news carried an especially sad weight. Dickey's poem moves into the predator/prey imagery as it closes, which isn't surprising, given Dickey's experience and literary persona as hunter (yes, of various and sundry prey, in the woods and on cocktail/reading circuits). I prefer the first three stanzas when I think of Arjun and Bear.

For Arj, I would have his favorite bush, the one we called his house because he furnished it with old flowerpots and pieces of fence, spreading endlessly over him, and a young girl's lap as capacious the universe, endlessly welcoming. I would have the hydrangea bush, where he also liked to sleep, always blooming.

For Bear, I imagine a willow tree spreading its ongoing canopy as if over a Queen, fields always brimful with scents to snuffle and rabbits to chase, and an unceasing creek to splash into during the heat of the eternal afternoon.

The Heaven of Animals

by James L. Dickey

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.


Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.


To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.


For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,


More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey


May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk


Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain


At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.


James Dickey, “The Heaven of Animals” from The Whole Motion: Collected Poems 1945-1992. Copyright © 1992 by James Dickey. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press, www.wesleyan.edu/wespress.

ARJUN: SAYING GOODBYE

(Last photograph of Arjun, taken the first morning I was back from Ga., after my flat tire experience! Having the dogs waiting for me helped calm me down.)


For nearly two years we have watched our daughter's beloved dog Arjun grow more decrepit, losing his hearing, his eyesight, his sense of who he was and where he was. What he was was a miracle. He had been one of the "Buchanan dogs," as they came to be known. I did not know this man's history, only that when he died suddenly of a heart attack 10 years ago, he left behind as many as 40 dogs in crates and cages. When his neighbors realized that they had not seen Mr. Buchanan around for a few days, they discovered him dead and called in the Health Department. Our good friend Mary Adams went over to check out the situation. She found many of these dogs unable to be saved. Only 4 or 5 were able to be put up for adoption. Our Arjun was one. She says that, remarkably, considering his living conditions for so many years, he put his nose through the cage and let her pet him. (The others were not socialized enough to make them adoptable.)

And so, three days after our daughter's cocker spaniel died suddenly one January night, we both went to ARF Adoption Day outside Ingle's in Sylva. (ARF is our local human society organization.) There sat a dog looking a lot like the gone spaniel, but larger, obviously with some Golden Retriever in him, as well. Same coloration. Large liquid eyes. Cory sat down and the dog climbed into her lap. He did not leave. We took him home with us, and here he has stayed ever since. Because he had survived so much in his first 8 years of living in a crate, receiving very little attention, probably not much food, Cory named him Arjun, her warrior-dog, after the hero of the Bhagavad Gita who meets God on the battlefield and sees the mystery of creation opened up to him. Arjun really was only warrior-like when our daughter seemed to be threatened or when our old dog Copper came at him. He was especially a warrior when he was on one side of the sliding glass door and Copper on the other. They waged fierce battles through that glass, teeth snarling, froth flying.

Now Arjun lies beside our garden. He breathed his last heroic breath Sunday afternoon. My good friends Herb Potts and Chris Wilcox came as soon as I called them and helped me through the last moments. Then they buried Arjun by our garden. I thank them a hundred times over. Our daughter was devoted to her dog. She called him "the love of her life." I would not presume to think that an exaggeration.


Here is a poem that my friend Susan Lefler wrote when their Gandolf died.

Gandolf

The old dog died—quiet.
Laid his gold head down
in my husband’s hands as if
to please us one last time,
which after all was his reason
for being: the cold nose
in the face each morning, his head
on my feet as I worked.

I listen for the click of his nails
as he crosses the house to see
where I am, how I am today.

A perfect V of wild geese flew above us
as we laid him in the ground,
they were calling
and calling

Susan Lefler



Our youngest dog, Ace, standing in the light of that same morning, when I was so happy to be back home.