Dog Songs by Mary Oliver Page B

little dogs.”

SCHOOL
    You’re like a little wild thing
    that was never sent to school.
    Sit, I say, and you jump up.
    Come, I say, and you go galloping down the sand
    to the nearest dead fish
    with which you perfume your sweet neck.
    It is summer.
    How many summers does a little dog have?
    Run, run, Percy.
    This is our school.

LITTLE DOG’S RHAPSODY IN THE NIGHT
    He puts his cheek against mine
    and makes small, expressive sounds.
    And when I’m awake, or awake enough
    he turns upside down, his four paws
    in the air
    and his eyes dark and fervent.
    “Tell me you love me,” he says.
    “Tell me again.”
    Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over
    he gets to ask.
    I get to tell.

TIME PASSES
    And now Percy is getting brazen.
    “Let’s down the beach, baby,” he says.
    “Let’s shake it with a little barking.
    Let’s find dead things, and explore them,
    by mouth, if possible.”
    Or maybe the leavings of Paul’s horse (after which,
    forgive me for mentioning it, he is fond of kissing).
    Ah, this is the thing that comes to each of us.
    The child grows up.
    And, according to our own ideas, is practically asunder.
    I understand it.
    I struggle to celebrate.
    I say, with a stiff upper lip familiar to many:
    Just look at that curly-haired child now, he’s his own man.

UNTITLED
    Just before Percy had his operation
    he had one long rendezvous with a
    little dog named Penny. As it happened
    there was no result. But, oh, how
    Percy smiled and smiled all the way
    home.

PERCY WAKES ME
    Percy wakes me and I am not ready.
    He has slept all night under the covers.
    Now he’s eager for action: a walk, then breakfast.
    So I hasten up. He is sitting on the kitchen counter
    where he is not supposed to be.
    How wonderful you are, I say. How clever, if you
    needed me,
    to wake me.
    He thought he would hear a lecture and deeply
    his eyes begin to shine.
    He tumbles onto the couch for more compliments.
    He squirms and squeals; he has done something
    that he needed
    and now he hears that it is okay.
    I scratch his ears, I turn him over
    and touch him everywhere. He is
    wild with the okayness of it. Then we walk, then
    he has breakfast, and he is happy.
    This is a poem about Percy.
    This is a poem about more than Percy.
    Think about it.

THE SWEETNESS OF DOGS
    What do you say, Percy? I am thinking
    of sitting out on the sand to watch
    the moon rise. It’s full tonight.
    So we go
    and the moon rises, so beautiful it
    makes me shudder, makes me think about
    time and space, makes me take
    measure of myself: one iota
    pondering heaven. Thus we sit, myself
    thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s
    perfect beauty and also, oh! how rich
    it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,
    leans against me and gazes up into
    my face. As though I were just as wonderful
    as the perfect moon.

PERCY SPEAKS WHILE I AM DOING TAXES
    First of all, I do not want to be doing this.
    Second of all, Percy does not want me
    to be doing this,
    bent over the desk like a besieged person
    with a dull pencil and innumerable lists
    of numbers.
    Outside the water is blue, the sky is clear,
    the tide rising.
    Percy, I say, this has to be done. This is
    essential. I’ll be finished eventually.
    “Keep me in your thoughts,” he replies. “Just because
    I can’t count to ten doesn’t mean
    I don’t remember yesterday, or anticipate today.
    I’ll give you ten more minutes,” and he does.
    Then shouts—who could resist—his
    favorite words: Let’s go!

PERCY, WAITING FOR RICKY
    Your friend is coming, I say
    to Percy and name a name
    and he runs to the door, his
    wide mouth in its laugh-shape,
    and waves, since he has one, his tail.
    Emerson, I am trying to live,
    as you said we must, the examined life.
    But there are days I wish
    there was less in my head to examine,
    not to speak of the busy heart. How
    would it be to be Percy, I wonder, not
    thinking, not weighing anything, just running forward.

PERCY (2002–2009)
    This—I said to Percy when I