November 12, 2019

dharma

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her dog house
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance --
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single cup, a single spoon?
Gandhi with staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment
she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind her ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

Billy Collins, Poetry (August, 1998)

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