Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Alone

...by Edgar Allen Poe.

A dog is howling east of here. That's nothing new. Sometimes I wake at night, startled, thinking someone is crying out for help, but once I manage to still my breathing I realize it's the poor dog going on and on. Sometimes I listen until I can almost see its breath curling up to the moon. The urge is always there to get up, pull on a parka and go sit with it. I'd like to think it would settle down, but maybe it would howl even more.

4 comments:

Anita Daher said...

Beautiful.

Perhaps the dog is sad, or yearning. Perhaps it might wish you to join in.

When I lived in Yellowknife, there was a husky next door who loved to sing. She also would NOT stay in her owner's house. When the SPCA called on my neighbour because of complaints of the dog being left outside in cold temperatures, and the singing, she would try to bring her in, but the dog would growf and howl (different from her singing) in the porch, until finally let her back outside. She loved "out." She loved distant sirens, which she would sing to. She loved passers by, airplanes flying overhead, and ravens on wires. She would sing to them all.

The complaints kept coming, unfortunately, and my neighbour felt she had no choice but to put the dog down.

Some live only to sing, I suppose.

Ariel Gordon said...

Sirens are the nighttime song I'm most used to...except that our modern sirens are meant to warn others away, not draw them in.

(Taken together, your posts on the subject made me wistful and happy and sad. Thanks.)

Tracy Hamon said...

Wonderful. Thanks B.

The barking dog reminds me of Billy Collins .

Brenda Schmidt said...

Anita, that's a sad story. Poor dog. This one is a husky, too. I hope it has better luck. I think it will.

Ariel, I liked your sirens. And I liked the guy who was fixing his bike in the middle of the night. Well, I remember the shadows more than I remember him. Regardless...

Cool. Thanks, Tracy.