A THEOLOGY BASED ON LABRADOR RETRIEVERS
...note I cut-and-repasted this after changing the case in MS Word - Spencer
Towards a theology based on labrador retrievers. I am arguing in the affirmative: that the creator moves among us today in Brooklyn, in the form of a black dog named Addie. Her benevolence is deeper than the farthest foxhole, her gentleness thick as husky fur. Were she human, she would sort and fold strangers' clothing at the laundromat. Were she only a dog, she would not fetch without being asked. There is abundance in her, like the butterfly laying its eggs in midair. Bountiful and democratic is her spirit: she licks my hand like a spa treatment, she sleeps, calm back flat by my flank, breathing like a separate sea. She dreams of the squirrel's flicking, scolding tail, its visible -neener, neener, neener! Her vengence is quick and awful. Yet love of fellowship runs in her blood, her song like the bird's that is only heard among other birds. She has taught me the help given to the soul by the mile-wide lawn dotted with trees, by the tossed scrap. I believe in her greetings, in the wide-maple way she roams from one scent to another. Bury me in this part of the park where the dogs run without leashes, mix my ashes with hers, shield us in joy, O Protector, O Collar. Let her true heart be contagious.
Tina Kelley
Poetry Northwest
Volume XLll, Number 2
Summer 2001
[ October 16, 2001: Message edited by: SpencerTheLion ]
