Tribute to Lady

Lady ( July 4th 1997 - December 19th 2010)

(Lady drawing by Ray Swaney)

A pensive black doggy named Lady

Lay quietly where it was shady.

A bevy of quail

Marched onto her trail

So she rapidly joined their paradey.

Lady As God 2007

My dog Lady otherwise engaged
will not come to me when I pray to her
“Here girl, good girl” busy god she
with no time to deign to descend
to respond to this mere god-made-man,
more likely, certain of my deity,
no mere agnostic she, Lady turns
away from me her personal god
never having conceived
hell among her many
much less virulent creations.

Without a Resurrection

Our black dog Lady
generally collapses to rest.
Trembling haunches
no longer ease her descent.
And likewise it would take muscles
dying within her, with her,
to enable our unabled black dog
to rise mightily once again
even one last time.



















Tale of the Tail

Did our black dog miss her tail?
She arrived without one.

I suppose it can truly be termed a “rescue.”
when you take in a dog without a tail.

What sort of tale lies behind her missing tail?
This poetic autopsy of my dog Lady’s tail:

What we know is that Lady
the offspring of a bizaare coupling

big black boisterous male lab and
coy little curly blonde cocker spaniel bitch

began in Clearlake where she
emerged confused on the Fourth of July.

Her psychic nine month gestation
prior to her finding her way to us

began with the pup picked from a box
before the Safeway store in Clearlake.

With such odd breeding, this puppy
named Cheyenne like something wild,

like some Nevada desert whore
with a prairie personality,

proved to be at battle within herself,
skittish as the worst-bred cocker,

convivial as a back-slapping lab,
this two-in-one toddler tugged-at-war within herself.

Scared love given
She must have been beaten

We see it when she cowers
We know of her former mistress

Mistress Oblivious who told us,
“Cheyenne (Oh how that name grates)

“Cheyenne was so good!
She used to pull my wheelchair.”

(something like the Grinch’s
scrawny little mutt without the antlers)

We know she rode long distances
over the mountain in a truck.

We know for show they later
bought two Maltese pups

that bit my black dog’s drooping ears
whenever she’d attempt to eat.

Then, like Cinderella, she was left
outside always alone

while her wicked little stepsisters
ate and played within –

--those tiny bitches! –
and then the tail was taken

by an overzealous vet
who tried to do a cocker bob

but effected a fully final amputation;
how embarassing when other dogs would

check her out, not to mention the phantom
pain she felt for her missing extremity.

The fortuitous fortune that set her free –
-- selfish folly—“too much trouble”

She found her way to us
through a fateful friend

She was wearing a black bow with
big white polka dots

We loved her instantly
She was fully a “Lady”

home from the camps
laden with baggage.

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