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Unfinished Landscape With A Dog
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Not much of a dog yet,
that smudge in the distance, beyond the reach
of focus. It's just an impressionist
gesture, a guess. From the edge of the clearing, the farmhouse
materializes, settles
into wall & stone. The water,
making the surface
of the stream, makes
reflections. So why shouldn't the dog
accept limits, become
a figure? Is it like the girl who sits
in the hall closet and says she's not
hiding? She's inside—
listening without the burden
of sight, letting locations
release hold. Out of body,
they seem lighter: her parents' voices no longer
hooked to their mouths. They seem
cleaner. Even the electric can opener;
the sounds of children
that rise from the yard, and fall; the opening
window, these are no longer
effects, things expected
of a subject and verb. The world anyhow is too
straightforward.
Maybe the dog
does not want to be a dog, does not want
to be turned into landscape
but to remain in the beginning, placeless:
with the wind opening, the wind
a vowel, and the stars and waters
that flash, recoil, and retch
unnamed as yet, unformed, unfound.
Kate Northrop
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Read poems about / on: dog, wind, girl, children, water, world, child, rose, star
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