08/27/2019
Pablo Neruda’s Ode to the Dog
The dog is asking me a question
and I have no answer.
He dashes through the countryside and asks me
wordlessly,
and his eyes
are two moist question marks, two wet
inquiring flames,
but I do not answer
because I haven’t got the answer.
I have nothing to say.
Dog and man: together we roam
the open countryside.
Leaves shine as
if someone
had kissed them
one by one,
orange tress
rise up from the earth
raising
minute planetariums
in trees that are as rounded
and green as the night,
while we roam together, dog and man
sniffling everything, jostling clover
in the countryside of Chile,
cradled by the bright fingers of September
The dog makes stops,
chases bees,
leaps over restless water,
listens to far-off
barking,
pees on a rock,
and presents me the tip of his snout
as if it were a gift:
it is the freshness of his love,
his message of love.
And he asks me
with both eyes:
why is it daytime? why does night always fall?
why does spring bring
nothing
in its basket
for wandering dogs
but useless flowers,
flowers and more flowers?
This is how the dog
asks questions
and I do not reply.
Together we roam,
man and dog bound together again
by the bright green morning,
by the provocative empty solitude
in which we alone,
exist,
this union of dog and dew
or poet and woods,
For these two companions,
for these fellow-hunters,
there is no lurking fowl
or secret berry
but only birdsong and sweet smells,
a world moistened
by night’s distillations,
a green tunnel and then
a meadow,
a gust of orangey air,
the murmurings of roots,
life on the move,
breathing and growing,
and the ancient friendship,
the joy
of being dog or being man
fused in a single beast
that pads along on
six feet,
wagging
its dew-wet tail.
