Sometimes a poem is born of an idea once removed from reality. This even even supposed imagines Carley on “guard duty”, sitting outside the icehouse while I’m composing a tribute to her. I imagine myself looking down from the window above, observing her. A sentinel observing a sentinel.
After all, isn’t a poet, a sort of sentinel, perennially Attentive? Although the bellicose implications aren’t especially relevant, the keen attention, the rigorous perception, the sense of duty do seem to be shared by both sentry and poet. Or so it feels in this moment.
Of course, I was not actually seated at my desk in the loft above, looking down upon Carley. I was standing on the lawn a few paces from her. Observing. Whispering words of patience so that I could capture these portraits without her laying down or lighting out after a a squirrel.
And it worked. For a moment. Until we went inside, climbed the staircase, and settled in so that I could capture this little gift from the muse, and whittle it down into a dozen lines about my dog.
And so an itty-bitty, micro poem is born.
Sitting Sentry
Within icehouse walls,
a poet’s whisper,
willing words and
whittling worlds,
tunes a tribute
to his loyal friend.
Without, surveying,
haunched with head held high,
the guardian’s gaze
vigilant, focused,
inspecting, ready
to alert, “The muse!”
Such a good natured dog.
But not — at least in the most typical sense — an especially likely candidate for guard dog duty…
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