Dog Poem by Mark Sauer

Did we choose them, or they us, at the start?
Long ages we watched each other sideways,
Sniffing alien spoor, stalking apart
The common prey, shirking the rival's gaze.
How and why did the gray competitor
First slink to the edge of the midnight blaze,
To rest beneath the hulking predator
Hand his tentative head? And how first gaze
Firm and trustful into the monster's eye?
How then was the pitiless hunter wrought
By brute hands into the cherished ally?
May we be judged by this lesson we taught
Strangely well, though ourselves not masters of;
We are the beasts that taught the Wolf to love.