Sunday, May 18, 2014

Mark Doty: "Golden Retrievals"














Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.
Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s—oh
joy—actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?
Either you’re sunk in the past, half our walk,
thinking of what you never can bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning
—tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.



"Golden Retrievals" by Mark Doty, from Sweet Machine: Poems. © HarperCollins Publishers, 1998.

Photography credit: "Golden Retriever Fetching Stick on Muddy Dirt Path," by Johan & Santina De Meester (originally color).


1 comment :

  1. Someone posted this poem on a telephone pole here in Oakland during the Corona virus pandemic. I was out for a walk and found this little gem to read. thanks!

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