Sometimes her square , pitbull mug resembles an alien. At times, her walnut eyes speak unfathomable volumes of compassion. Always, Ryegrass Dog likes to share, except for with Chevre the dog, her white, wolfish, one-year old boyfriend, when he tries to lick the avocado peel that she’d been working on, and she wants to murder him with her white gritted teeth.
Regrass Dog is one of my role models. Even though she doesn’t have hands, and even though she can’t speak, and even though she doesn’t get to sit at the table, or make adult choices, or eat good steak, she makes the best out of every moment. Just look at the way she holds her chest, so high, mighty and proud.
A few weeks ago I let Rye out of prison. Her ankle injury was hard on the mend, and she was condemned to trailer-lounging all day long. For two whole weeks! When I let her out, one afternoon, she was the same Ryegrass . . .
The moon is in full bloom tonight. Almost full bloom. The clouds are like black curtains floating between us. The moon, in big fat shiny bloom, like a chalky white baloon.
. . . And Ryegrass got ahead of herself that evening. She squirmed through an ancient barbed wire fence into the neighbors land. (Kids will be kids.) Though in dog years she’s almost 35! And how she’s maintained that figure!
Anyways. From within the neighbor’s woodwork, she barked ferociously. And then, spontaneous as a thunder clap, she leapt through the fence, like a stallion with breath on fire, back into the farm. She dashed down the hill, throwing herself onto the ground, rolling, quivering, shaking her white belly at the sunset, snorting and sneezing and snorting. But how stinky! Skunked! She got hit! The duchess got skunked! Teary-eyed but resolute, she took it like a champ, a lady, a princess. She never complained, cursed her destiny, or accused god of unjustly persecuting her . . .
The barn toinght is like a darn. A darn of wool. Wool that was woven into a sweater in 1927. And then worn. Day in and day out. Heat of the summer and ice of the winter. Cow dung, spotted cows, and tornados. A darn like a barn. Darn it. This barn its . . . its got something undeniablly beautiful and real. If I weren’t myself, I would say this barn possessed an oddly mystical quality . . . something about the grains of wood, and the slats in the walls, and the support beams like dry bones of past gods, and the gray kitten triplets, and the way the wind moves through it all like breath through a harmonica.
But I am me, and I would not say that. Did I already say it? The weird thing to say? ‘Whoops’ said the flea, ‘there’s a horse on me.’
. . . Ryegrass chose not to accompany to the barn this evening. She and I worked fourteen whole hours today!!! And while the moon is full, and I am full of chatter, Ryegrass Dog is making the more responsible decision, readying her body for tomorrow’s hardship anew, snuggling on top the comforter.
I shall now follow suit. (After gaping at the she-moon , for just another sweet couple of life-asserting moments. Hmmmmm. And a woooooooooooooooooooo, cries the coyote inside the skinny marrow of my legs.
Snuggle time with Ryegrass Dog! Good night!
Teddy
