LADY, by Julia Nunnally Duncan

Julia Nunnally Duncan at our joint reading at Malaprop's Bookstore in December.

Julia Nunnally Duncan is both poet and fiction writer. I "discovered" her years ago when I sat on the reading committee for Appalachian Consortium Press and read her manuscript of stories entitled Blue Ridge Shadows. It was haunting work, and I contacted her about it. (It was later published by Iris Press.) We've been friends ever since. Julia's latest book of poetry An Endless Tapestry (March Street Press) was one of 3 finalists for NC's Roanoke-Chowan Award and received a great review in the 2009 North Carolina Literary Review. She has published several collections of stories and a novel. To learn more about her and her work, go to http://www.topsail-island.info/wordpress/index.php/nc-authors/julia-nunnally-duncan/

Julia sent this poem to me after learning of my blog invitation for work about beloved animals.

Lady

The wildlife worker found her
deep in the winter woods,
a front leg clamped by a hunter’s steel trap,
the bone nearly severed,
snow her only sustenance
for the two weeks that she was caught.

He named her Lucky,
and the veterinarian’s record
made before the amputation
listed Lucky as her name.

We had named her Lady
a couple of years earlier
when we found her at the abandoned house,
cowering inside an outside toilet,
her basset hound mother already
dead from a neighbor’s bullet,
her sisters and brothers either killed
or dead from malnutrition.

Lady’s face was malformed—
a face only a master could love,
we would later tease.
At first too weak to hold her head up,
she let her muzzle hit the ground—
bonk—
every time she tried to lift it.
I braced her head
so that she could drink the water
she had thirsted for.

But after a few weeks of living in a cardboard box
on our front porch,
the shocking mass of roundworms
purged from her puppy guts
and her white gums soon pink with health,
she began to play.
And her speed
as she darted around our steep yard
would shame a greyhound;
her appetite proved phenomenal.
One Thanksgiving after she had filled her belly
with turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes
(her favorite dish),
she lay in the yard to rest,
but still barked at the leftovers
that tantalized her.

That later winter
when she went for a walk in the woods
and didn’t return,
I called the city dog pound
and cried as I described Lady—
black and white basset-beagle mix,
jut-jawed, big brown eyes—
hoping the dogcatcher might have picked her up
and still held her alive,
fearing he might say I’d called too late.
But he had not seen her.

And then after many torturous days
something happened:
a dog was mentioned
in the lost and found section
of our local newspaper.
I called the number and
spoke to a wildlife man
who had found her.

But I have bad news,
he added,
and told me about her lost leg
as if I wouldn’t want her anymore.

Lady lived with us many more years,
as quick a runner as ever,
and died at seventeen and a half
during a hard, cold winter,
when icy mounds of snow
piled around her backyard dog house.

She spent her final days in our basement, though,
near the woodstove.
We wrapped her in a quilt
and tended to her
as we might an elderly parent.
She suffered from incontinence,
had stopped eating—
her jaws locked—
and her eyes,
long past seeing,
had turned a cloudy blue.
It seemed her luck had run out,
or maybe it was a blessing
that the end was near.

When Lady passed,
my husband played a song on our stereo—
In the Arms of the Angels—
music that gave him comfort
and that he wanted to give to Lady
to send her safely away.
But like my mother who doesn’t want to hear
The Old Rugged Cross—
her mother’s favorite hymn
that was played at the funeral,
I have only to detect the first notes of the
Sarah McLachlan song,
and I change the radio channel.

It’s not that music that I want to hear
and remember Lady
as she was on her final night;
but rather I would like to recall
the bright sound from years earlier,
of her baying
at the Thanksgiving scraps,
annoyed that she couldn’t hold
one more bite.

KAYLA'S ASHES, by Kathryn Magendie

This piece is by Kathryn Magendie, who may be found at www.tendergraces.blogspot.com. Kat's first novel Tender Graces was published last year. She's a fine writer and a lively, lovely woman. You will enjoy her blog, so please give it a visit. Today is her birthday. Happy Birthday, Kathryn!!!!!

KAYLA'S ASHES

The mahogany box is heavy

and inside you lie in a plain plastic baggie.

Oh! I cry. Oh! You must be released,

for you do not belong inside,

but instead everywhere we walked together

in this mountain cove. I dig,

bits of you lodge into my fingernails,

you are softer and finer than I imagined,

but then what would I ever imagine but

your solid body and soft fur and big brave heart?

I let you drift through my fingers

into the wind that’s come down from

the mountain ridge, and as you drift,

sunlight filters through you so that

I see layers and layers of you

and sun and light and prisms of color

that aren’t really colors at all but memories

of color; the heaviest parts of you

fall to the ground and lie bone-white bone,

but the light of light of you hovers

in the air and dances,

dances and hovers and lingers

before all of you slowly disappears,

dissolves in the cool morning air

in the cove at Killian Knob.

I am awed, then I am alone.

Good old girl. That’s my girl,

that’s my good good old girl.

WALKING THE DOG, by Charlotte Holmes

(Erland Drowses, photo by Charlotte Holmes)

This post is sent to me via her blog Nightbook (see sidebar) by Charlotte Holmes, a former WCU professor who has lived and taught in Pennsylvania for more years than I want to tally. Charlotte is a brilliant fiction writer (you can look her up!) and this short essay about taking her dog Erland for a walk is a mere taste of her talent. I've come to enjoy her blog very much; I think you will, too.

------------------------------

"It is what it is," I tell the dog tethered to the other end of the black nylon leash wrapped three times around my hand. Erland wags his tail, but his attention is elsewhere. He stares into the middle distance of the neighbor's backyard, where a squirrel he doesn't see darts down the gravel driveway. He puts his nose to the ground and breathes in the smell of leaf mold and mud.

Erland receives much of the junk that floats around inside my head. Sometimes a word leaks out, inadvertently: expedient, photogravure, evolutionary. They are all the same to him--words that do not mean it's time to go out or time for dinner. His tail wags at the sound of my voice, and sometimes, he turns and focuses his large brown eyes on this person at the other end of the leash. I speak freely as we make our way down the back alley, something I would not have done even a few years ago. Now, if anyone sees or hears, I expect they think Bluetooth is my invisible companion. "Not that I care," I tell Erland, who hesitates over something oily mashed into the asphalt, then flicks his tail and trots on.

A narrow charcoal line behind my house, the alley connects to the cross streets drawn in bolder strokes north and south across the map of this small town. In the alley, potholes fill with rain, freeze to circles of ice in winter. Erland and I step lightly around them. He walks ahead, nose to the ground. When he stops to breathe in the scents lodged in the telephone pole, I tug him back on track. When he smells a neighbor approaching a row of plastic cans with a bag of trash, his hackles rise, he barks, and strains against the leash as if he would attack this man whose name I do not know, though I've lived on this street for sixteen years. The man says what nearly all men of a certain type say when barked at by my dog: "Yeah, yeah, I hear ya, buddy, you're a real tough customer, arentcha?"

Erland is small. Erland is a dachshund. Erland has a bark that sometimes startles me when it erupts out of his muscular throat and shatters the room's quiet. Erland stops for a moment, scrutinizing the man banging the lid back down on the trash can, then resumes barking with renewed force, with something like rage. He would bite the man if the man approached, but the man thinks Erland is both cute and ridiculous. "Yeah, yeah," he says again, in a mocking voice, as I pull Erland away.

We walk down behind the deaf woman's house, and past the backyard of the restaurant magnate, where the entire space is a paved terrace with statuary and a plashing fountain. "Nouveau," I tell Erland, but he is too busy to pay attention, sniffing carefully at the low stone wall that must serve as a kind of message board for those who know the world primarily through their sense of smell. He is too short to lift his leg, so he squats at the base of the wall, and takes a long, meditative piss. "Good boy," I say, and he stares up at me, tolerant of my condescending ways. "What she always says," he is possibly thinking.

"Silly, huh?" I ask, but there at the other end of the leash, he's distracted again, nose already lifted in the air in pursuit of a new scent. He paws the ground half-heartedly, then pulls me along with him, searching for its source.

WHAT OTHERS MAY KNOW, WHAT WE KNEW, by Helen Losse

(Photo of Rosie, Helen's much-loved current cat)

Helen Losse lives in Winston-Salem, where she is an editor for the online poetry 'zine The DEAD MULE (www. deadmule.com). The February issue is well worth visiting! Helen has published her poetry widely both in journals and in book form. The link to her website/blog follows her poem. For more about Helen and her work, please go to My Laureate's Lass0, http://ncpoetlaureate.blogspot.com/2009/04/better-with-friends-by-helen-losse.html.

What Others May Know, What We Knew

—for Chester



On the day we kissed Chettie goodbye,

we didn’t stay to watch him “go.”



We put “cat things” away

in the attic over the car port:



litter box, dishes, carrier, out of sight.

We threw away milk jug rings,



our boy cat’s pictures of Bill Elliot’s car.

We kept the yards of curling ribbon,



for we knew another day would come.

Others may know what I mean:



To celebrate memory, enlarge life,

enjoy fur touching the skin.

Helen Losse

--for her response to my prompt, Helen will receive a copy of my Coming to Rest.

Helens website: Windows Toward the World-- http://helenl.wordpress.com/

Her mail signature:
"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows." – Martin Luther King, Jr.

SOPHIE, by Lisa Parker

I met Lisa Parker the first year I taught at Hindman Settlement School. Right away I knew that she was "the real thing," a poet who plumbed her place (the Virginia mountains) and her place in it with passion and intuitive skill. Lisa is also a photographer who's had a show in NYC. She was living there during the 9/11 attacks and immediately went to help, being trained in triage. Her first collection will be published soon by Motes Books.

She sent this message via facebook:

I loved your prompt on your blog today and wanted to share with you a poem about my little feral rescue cat, Sophie, who touched me like no other animal I've ever owned. She was living in a storm drain on the govt site where I work and was rescued by a friend when she realized she was pregnant. Four month after my friend rescued her, I took Sophie and one of her kittens, Leo, home with me. She died suddenly after only a year with me and I found myself just utterly devastated. I ended up writing this poem about her and found it more cathartic than anything else I'd ever written. I wanted to share it with you but it was honestly too much of a downer to put on your blog! So I thought I'd send it to you here. I'll send the poem in a separate email as I think it would be too big here. I love your blog, by the way! I read it at work when I have the chance and it's a beautiful reprieve from the world of discontent that overwhelms me some days. It's a beautiful little light in my day, so I thank you for that. xoxo - Lisa"
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SOPHIE

We buried you by half-moon light
in cool October air that steamed
around Dad’s shoulders as he dug
the mulch, dirt and clay, the odd
rock and gnarled root. I dug the last
few inches, still in work shoes, still
in shock to know you lay stiff and quiet
in the passenger seat of my car, wrapped
in a blanket Eric put you in, seatbelted in
as we drove I-95 to Mom and Dad’s house
in the country, a ride I remember only
for the few exit signs I saw without
the blur of tears when my body
forced deep, gasping breaths that slowed
the sobs to a stop, if only for a moment,
if only for that knee-jerk self-preservation
that comes out of nowhere.

We buried you in a garden planted by Dad
who met me at the car that night
with a crushing hug and a Yeah, sweetie,
life sucks sometimes, words I knew
were all he could offer outside the shovel
and fencepost digger I already saw propped
against his boat in the garage.

We buried you in a garden spot they picked
for its loveliness and with a promise
to plant some unique, beautiful flower
over you. Mom, who had never met you,
cried for the loss of anything
that would ruin me so thoroughly
and she whispered toward
your blanketed body as Dad lowered you in,
Thank you for bringing her such joy
and for gentling her the way you did.

By morning, I sat on the porchsteps
picking the caked mud out of my shoes
with the end of a small hickory stick.
Dad watched me from the dining room window
and after a long while, came and draped
his flannel shirt over my shoulders, a quick pat
to my head and a heavy sigh
before he said, It’s chilly out here;
good in the sun, though.

FULL MOON, by Vicki Lane

The first person to respond to my request for pet-related comments was Vicki Lane. Her poem for her dogs, who at the time this was written stayed in the basement, made my hair stand on end! "Electric with excitement"....oh yes, I know that dance. Two of our dogs did the electric dance this morning and woke me up! No full moon outside, though. Just morning beckoning with car sounds and neighbor dogs barking.

And doesn't the full moon make US want to dance with excitement? Vicki captures that "ancient longing" beautifully. Go to my sidebar to find the link to her wonderful blog, www.vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com.

For her memorable response, Vicki will receive a copy of my chapbook WAKE.

Full Moon ~ 4:30 AM

In the basement, dogs are restless -
Soft whining, imploring,
Door scratching, demanding,

Surfacing from sleep and warm blankets, I rise,
Push my feet into slippers and stiffly descend steep stairs.
The dogs dance, electric with excitement
As I fumble with the door.

Outside the setting moon illumines fields, woods, hills ...
Bright as night.
My heart swells; unseen fur rises and with it an ancient longing...

To run ... to hunt beneath the moon ...
Paws wet in the dew-crisp grass ...
To see forever...

Tomorrow my good friend Lisa Parker will be up, with a poem she feared was too much of a downer to post as a comment. It's about what Vicki, and several others of us who have beloved animals, have written about already--losing a pet we love. Fabulous poem. Drop back by to read it.

ALL THE DOGS OF OUR LIVES (or Cats or.....)

I've had such good comments on my dog posts that I'd like to keep them coming, so I'm trying out an idea I've been stirring around awhile in my head, or rather the stock pot in my head. (I almost wrote "stock poet"! )

Three years ago when I visited Iron Station Elementary School, I stood before a lunchroom full of K through second graders, seated on the floor, chirping like little birds until the teachers made them hush so that I could being my "presentation." But what in Dog's name was it going to be! I was terrified. Please, Dog, throw me a lifeline, and He did. Ask them about their pets! So I did. What are their names? Up shot the hands. We spent quite a few minutes naming our dogs and cats and then I read a poem, which one I now can't remember. I took some of their pets' names and began riffing a little poem on them, which seemed to delight the children. Then the 30 minutes was up! As they filed out, many of them wanted to touch the cowboy boots I was wearing, a gift from my friend doris davenport. Of course I let them, although the teachers were trying to hurry them out as quickly as possible before the 3-5 graders arrived.

So, since we have been talking about our dogs, I'm going to invite you to compose a comment/essay/poem, whatever form it takes, about one of your animals. Furred, feathered, scaled. You name it.

And then I will pick one or two I especially like, share them in a post, and send the writers a copy of one of my books---or a poem I've written especially for the occasion.