April 27: De'an

[Martha]

De'an
Heid E. Erdrich

Dogs so long with us we forget
that wolves allowed as how
they might be tamed and sprang up
all over the globe, with all humans,
all at once, like a good idea.
 
So we tamed our own hearts.
Leashed them or sent them to camp’s edge.
Even the shrinks once agreed, in dreams
our dogs are our deepest selves.
 
Ur Dog, a Siberian, dogged
the heels of nomads,
then turned south to Egypt
to keep Pharaoh safe.
 
Seemed strange, my mother sighed,
when finally we got a hound,
. . . a house without a dog.
 
Her world never knew
a yard un-dogged and thus
unlocked. Sudden intrusions
impossible where yappers yap.
 
Or maybe she objected
to empty armchairs,
rooms too quiet
without the beat
of tail thump or paw thud.
 
N’de, Ojibwe say, my pet,
which also suggests ode, that spot in the chest,
the part you point to when you pray,
or say with great feeling—great meaning,
meaning dog-love goes that deep.

--

More from indigenous poets.

More dog poems: 

+ A Small, Soul-Colored Thing, Paisley Rekdal
+ Dog in Bed, Joyce Sidman
+ Snow, Aldo, Kate DiCamillo

Today in:

2024: Witness, Crystal Wilkinson
2023: from Burial, Ross Gay
2022: Ode to Tortillas, José Olivarez
2021: Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry, Jericho Brown
2020: The Restoration, Gary Jackson
2019: The Termite, Ogden Nash
2018: Elegy, W.S. Merwin
2017: Young Wife’s Lament, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2016: For the Confederate Dead, Kevin Young
2015: Awaking in New York, Maya Angelou
2014: when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story, Gwendolyn Brooks
2013: Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey, Hayden Carruth
2012: My Place, Franz Wright
2011: from The Wild Geese, Wendell Berry
2010: Love After Love, Derek Walcott
2009: To This May, W.S. Merwin
2008: Father, Ted Kooser
2007: from Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, Galway Kinnell
2006: Crusoe in England, Elizabeth Bishop
2005: Dream Song 1, John Berryman

+ Today's poem: De'an, Heid E. Erdrich