The Low Point Of The Path

My dog is trying to teach me something.

The dog wades delighted 
in the puddle laced with pine needles. 
All winter the water collected 
at this low point of the path, a basin of ice, 
and now that we've lost the last late snow
the puddle has swollen into a flood 
stretched deep and wide
that swallows the trail.

She dips her face into the sweet water, 
which smells fresh and sappy. 
She blows bubbles with her nose, pulls up 
mouthfuls of wet leaves and brown pine hay, 
shakes her head, tosses to herself 
and catches with a splash. 
The needles are soft, chewy 
she wears them like whiskers 
around the edges of her mouth. 
She could stay here all day
rolling like a hippopotamus, three quarters submerged. 
The pine puddle is an invitation to wallow 
and you don’t have to ask her twice. 

This immediacy evades me. 
The dog throws body, energy, attention 
into the present moment without reservation. 
I am too aware of wet socks and
shoes, the errands to run. I get stuck 
at the edges, not just of puddles  
but at the edge of the experience: 
what was before, what is coming
what could happen, what will soon not be.  
I am an edge wallower, 
flicking my gaze away, distracted  
from this moment's mouthfuls and bubbles, 
the crunchy sticks, the gliding 
cool water against the skin like silk. 

That I can anticipate change 
does not protect me from grief. I knew
I was losing my job three months before it happened,
and yet well into this new season I remain
mired in loss. The grief is a fresh trench
and I am scraping my spade, unclear 
whether I am digging out or making it deeper. 

Walks with the dog help. 
Soon the pine puddle will dry up, 
and perhaps she will be surprised by this, 
but not wounded. 
By May this lake will be an invisible indentation 
she will run past, panting, 
delighted instead by the sun warmed grass, 
the swarming columns of bugs, 
the hundred new smells of green.