Here is a poem that a friend of mine wrote. It's one of my very favorites, and it always chokes me up.


Yellow Dog

You keep your lofty abstract God.
Myself, I choose a child of Pan,
An ordinary yellow dog
Who does for love what mortals can,
Who stretches out her mortal frame
Determinedly, although she's lame
For one more walk beside her man.

Whose ashes grace the forest way
We roamed together yesterday.
And to the wilder god I pray:
Give her soul some woods to run,
A stick to fetch, a patch of sun.
And near her, Pan, preserve a place
For me, come from a lesser race .

© 1994 W. B. Leavenworth



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