Tongues
The man who walks with dogs has to find
new words for the first daffodil in bloom
yellowing the small graves up the hill.
Each puppy is a new friend coming
to the language of walks, mad deer-dashes
and lolling tongues. Spring walks, crinkly
leaf-fall walks, winter walks for wild prints
in snow. Each dog has its seasons,
before it too digs underground. On the hill
under daffodils, a dog can sniff the history
of dogs through six stomped feet of earth.
A man has trouble with words for this.
He walks with dogs to hold his silence.
~ Taylor Graham
from Still Life with Wood Smoke (Mt. Aukum Press, 2002)
