Yesterday Night

The Poem

All morning I have been trying to decidewhat to do with my lifeand then I saw the dog at the fence —her paws on the top rail,her ears forward,watching two people in lawn chairswith the complete attentionthat is the one thing dogs dothat we have entirely forgotten.I stopped.I watched her watch them.This is how I have learnedalmost everything worth knowing.

The grass had made its decision.Sometime in July, I think,when no one was looking,it simply stopped.

The woman had her feet in a small pool of water.Blue and yellow.The last cool thing in the yard.I understood this immediately.We have all, at some point,found the last cool thingand put our feet in itand called it enough.

This is not giving up.This is the other thing —the harder thing —the decision to be where you arein the body you haveon the grass that diedin the yard you ownin the August that will not leave.I have walked enough fieldsto know this is its own kind of bravery.

The man was looking up.Behind him, a rocket —his, I think,or he believes it his,which in August amounts to the same thing.It has not gone anywhere.I did not ask why.I have seen enough of the distancebetween the dream of departureand the departure itselfto know the question is unkind.

He was looking up.That is not nothing.That is, in fact, everything —the persistent unreasonable human habitof looking up from the dead grasstoward the sky that offers nothingand going on looking.

Nearby, a nurse stood at the gate.She had come quietlythe way the necessary things always come —not announced, not urgent,simply present at the edge of the yard,one hand on the latch,waiting to be needed or not neededwith equal readiness.I have thought about this for a long time —the grace of the ones who wait at gates,who do not enter until asked,who have seen everythingand remain unfrightened and ready.We do not thank them enough.We do not notice them until we have to.

The grace of the ones who wait at gates

The powerlines ran through the whole skyleft to right,humming their one notethe way the necessary structures hum —not asking to be heard,not needing to be thanked,simply carrying what needs carryingfrom one place to anotherwhether we asked them to or not.I have learned to hear this.It took years.

But the dog —I keep coming back to the dog.Her paws on the rail.Her complete attention.Her absolute refusal to look anywherebut at her peoplein their chairsin their dead grassin their August that will not end.She was not worried.She was not sad.She was doing the one thing she knew how to dowhich was to witness without flinchingand to stay.

I keep coming back to the dog

This is the world.Two people.Dead grass.A pool the size of a decision.A rocket that stayed.A nurse at the gate.The powerlines connecting everything to everything else.

And the dog —faithful, patient,asking nothing, missing nothing —watching over all of itfrom the fence in the August lightas if it were sacred.As if it were enough.As if this particular yardon this particular eveningin this particular countrywere worth every bit of her attention.

I believe her.
I have always believed the dogs.