Dog Songs

by Mary Oliver

EVERY DOG’S STORY I have a bed, my very own. It’s just my size. And sometimes I like to sleep alone with dreams inside my eyes. But sometimes dreams are dark and wild and creepy and I wake and am afraid, though I don’t know why. But I’m no longer sleepy and too slowly the hours go by. So I climb on the bed where the light of the moon is shining on your face and I know it will be morning soon. Everybody needs a safe place.

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing.

Benny, I say, don’t worry. I also know the way the old life haunts the new.

Or maybe it’s about the wonderful things that may happen if you break the ropes that are holding you.

Emerson, I am trying to live, as you said we must, the examined life. But there are days I wish there was less in my head to examine, not to speak of the busy heart.

How would it be to be Percy, I wonder, not thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward.

and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true, but they’ll be real.”

But it is smell he is listening to. The wild, high music of smell, that we know so little about.

Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift.