Dream of Koa Returning
that I had always known
with its porch and gray-painted floorboards
I looked out to the river
flowing beyond the big trees
and all at once you
were just behind me
lying watching me
as you did years ago
and not stirring at all
when I reached back slowly
hoping to touch your long amber fur
and there we stayed without moving
listening to the river
and I wondered whether
it might be a dream
whether you might be a dream
whether we both were a dream
in which neither of us moved
--W.S. Merwin
This poem concerning a dog companion (but also about time and other things) comes from a section of poems concerning the dogs of his lifetime in Merwin's Pulitzer Prize winning 2009 book The Shadow of Sirius (Sirius is known as the dog star.) Nevertheless the photo at the top is of a cat, also with amber fur. We have a dog now, Howdy, to help us celebrate the Christmas season. But before him was Pema the cat, of Christmases past, not forgotten nor undreamed about.
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