In Praise of Collies

Nel wondering why I've stopped to eat on Moel Siabod

I have measured out my life...not in coffee spoons but in border collies. Since I was twenty I have lived in the presence of collies. They have all shared an intelligence, intensity and curiosity, a deep affection and loyalty while retaining their unique personalities.

Two have been the most amazing pathfinders. Megan was my second collie. I remember taking a compass bearing aimed at the cairn about a mile or so away before setting off across Blackstone Edge in snow . Megan ran a little way ahead, in an unwavering line straight to the cairn. I have trusted her instinct when caught in a white-out while running the Kentmere Round in the Lake District and on many occasions when I thought I would easily retrace my steps through unknown dense forestry.

Megan's strict abiding to paths sometimes led us into bother. When I lived in West Yorkshire our local regular run was the path up to Top Withens, considered to be the inspiration for Emily Bronte's novel, "Wuthering Heights". One morning we set off up to the ruin but decided to run on a good few miles further. On our return a couple of hours later, having reached the top of the path that looks down on Bronte Bridge, I saw that a film crew had set up there. Standing in the middle of the bridge was a woman in crinolines, holding a parasol. This meant nothing to Megan who was racing towards the bridge to cross it, regardless of who might be on it. I looked on aghast as  the woman spotted this wild-eyed and thoroughly bog-drenched collie heading at speed towards her on the narrow bridge. She just had time to catch up her dress and bend herself backwards to give Megan the room she needed to cross. Megan's habit was to then sit the other side of the bridge to watch for me. This she did amidst all the film equipment, while  a dozen or more pairs of eyes, including Megan's, watched my descent to the bridge - not all with love in their hearts.

Nel, my current companion has the same talent for path finding. There is one route that we run in the forest where we live that takes in two lakes - Llyn Hafod y Llyn and Llyn Mair. At two points around Llyn Hafod y Llyn, Nel takes her own short cuts, although I have never run or walked on these paths with her. I call these her Desire Lines.

All of my collies have lived into ripe old age but it hasn't made losing a dog you have loved so long and so well any easier. This is a Found Poem I wrote with the original works cited at the end.

A Small Dog

She was a small dog,
neat and fluid –
She flowed through fences
like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly
she was old
and sick and crippled.

 I’ve made the call.

All day we sat with her

making our farewells.
We ease her out
of that worn-out
body
with a kiss.

She’s gone

like a whisper.
The easiest breath,
unmitigatedly awful
and not so at all.

And when it was over

we gave in to grief
as though we were rushing
to basins
to bend over.
Hands held
to faces,
we stumbled
and stooped

We try our best.

A good end, we tell ourselves.
The best we could do.
A long life.
A fine life,
and not nearly enough.

“Dog Years – a Memoir” by Mark Doty

“On The Euthanasia of a Pet Dog” by Elizabeth Smither

“Praise of a Collie” by Norman MacCaig

A Found Poem

Galway Kinnell

I am no cook so rather than write about the best meal I've ever made I decided to post a poem I wrote in response to "Oatmeal" by Galway Kinnell. It is partly a Found Poem in that I have used excerpts from other writers.

 

I ate porridge for breakfast.

I made it on the stove
in the French cast iron saucepan.
I made it as I like it,
so thick the spoon stood up,
and sweetened with agave nectar.
I thought of a poet
not to have breakfast with -
Sylvia Plath -
(not after nearly three hours
of Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” last night).
I think she would
take her porridge “as a morsel, cold".
And those scolding vowels
setting my nervous dog on edge –
“You do not do, you do not do…”
If  I’ve learned
anything from the black rook
in rainy weather, it is to
“let spotted leaves fall as they fall,
without ceremony, or portent.”
Tonight I will make the seven leeks
pulled from the ground this morning,
(roots glistening silver) into a pie
and invite Mary Oliver to dinner.

Quotations used are from "Antony and Cleopatra" - Shakespeare and "Daddy" and "Black Rook in Rainy Weather" - Sylvia Plath

Found Poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new meaning. The resulting poem can be defined as either treated: changed in a profound and systematic manner; or untreated: virtually unchanged from the order, syntax and meaning of the original.