Walking Lucky Poem by Denis Mair

Out of the unbounded, and into a pair of Converse tennis shoes!
Morning meditation over, I come downstairs,
Approaching Lucky in the gray light, leash in hand.
He spins crazy circles at the end of his chain,
I raise a stick to make him crouch… just as a game,
The quick way to fasten the leash and start our walk;
Then he lunges like a bloodhound hot on the trail,
He leans against my drag like a sled dog,
He treats me like I'm just a dead log;
He wheezes from pulling me so hard.
Poor Lucky, you are not enjoying your walk,
Tugging at cross purposes won't get us to the park,
You are a bundle of nerves!
Your collie-shepherd features could be regal
But they lose their handsomeness
When you hunch your head and shoulders
To pull in a direction we are headed anyway.
Get a clue, you packet of excess muscle!
The way you strain against resistance
Evaporates your energy into the void;
You turn the spigot of vitality wide open;
How much will be given to you in this life?
You've got to learn to subtilize your kundalini;
You've got to turn your drives into a snake dance.
Being a temple dog, you are called upon to learn this.
Just now I was having my morning sit, just sitting;
The whole universe was taking me for a walk.
I did not yank and pull; I wanted to see where I could go.
You and I could cruise along, smelling all kinds of bushes.
We could be parading our smooth gait on other blocks.

It's time to teach Lucky not to pull.
I don't follow a police-dog training program.
I don't use a torture collar that tightens and chokes;
Whenever Lucky yanks I simply yank back.
Here we go.Stop hunching like you're ready to pull:
Take that.Don't forget I'll respond to you.
Take that.That's how my shoulder feels when you pull.
Don't pull.Take that.YELP!
I look sheepishly around for Animal Liberation.
Each time I yank, I should yank as an enlightened mentor,
But my temper insists on giving lessons to Lucky.
My temper takes us both for a walk, yanking and yanking,
While Prokofiev in my headphones stirs up the drama.

Lucky is a smart dog: after four days he gets the idea.
He's careful not to pull, but he makes tight turns
He burns off his excitement by doing figure-eights,
Runs loops as I change the leash from hand to hand.
We have the routine down. Based on the ratio of pi,
I figure he covers three times the distance I walk

He settles to a prancing trot, with head held high.
He stops to sniff and lift his leg, my mind records it all:
Too many useless details about which shrubs he likes.
At the privet bushes, he trickles scent over waxy leaves;
And a row of yew trees is Lucky's spot to move his bowels:
He backs his rump among the limber branches,
Likes to dump his load among a shrub's forked branches.
Mostly it's a classic hunker, back paws in front of front paws,
Then he stands up and scuffs grains of dirt behind him.
He likes slinking and groveling among knik-knik creepers.
He scuffs and scatters the mulch of cedar chips.
Sometimes he walks straight past the creeper growth;
Sometimes he cannot get enough of groveling in it.
One morning he stood up like a bear, leaning against a wall,
Because a blackbird was chirping in a lemon tree.
Lucky likes to rub against the base of juniper trees;
He grovels sideways and winds himself around a shrub,
Then rolls himself wet in the dewy grass beside it.
He buries head and shoulders in the stiff branches.
This is his game of hiding in the underbrush,
His chance to forget the chain that holds him captive.
His herd-dog blood makes him a native of open fields,
But getting lost in thickets in his atavistic fantasy.
Lucky dreams of immersion among his own kind.
At trees visited by dogs, he lingers to imprint their scent,
He lightly rubs his head against fresh droppings:
Getting some on his fur lets him 'study' the scent closely.
He knows the scent of dogs who walk in our neighborhood.
Breathing in scent is the closest he gets to running with them.

Walking Lucky at daybreak requires a wary eye.
A certain lady is out walking four large dogs at once;
Lucky turns rigid when he spots them on the next block;
I turn the other way, not trusting Lucky to keep cool.
The lady gives a distant nod, to say I did the right thing.
I also avoid the half-Rottweiler that runs circles in its yard,
And the German shepherd that is in constant frenzy.
One morning Lucky slipped from the leash and dashed off;
I followed, but he streaked away when I drew near;
He ran out of sight, but I could hear him barking.
I arrived in time to see him back away from a fight,
In the excitement, Lucky forgot that he was running away,
He emerged from the yard and ran straight to greet me.

Sometimes walking Lucky cheers me out of a low mood.
In the hot afternoon, I call him from his plastic-igloo doghouse;
Or he crawls from under a freesia bush with pollen on his muzzle.
On the lawn near the shopping center, he attacks sprinklers for a game;
He shakes his head rapidly and bites at the jet of water;
He comes close to the nozzle, but shakes himself and runs away.
He did succeed in tearing out one sprinkler head:
He was tied up beside it, so it was serious business.

By gray light I slip downstairs in the morning,
The atmosphere quivers with glissades of violin.
I scan for a nervous edge, wanting to hear the city's mood;
When 'Classical 105' starts up a stodgy old-time theme,
I switch to 'Power 106, Where Hip-Hop Lives.'
Lucky leaps up to meet me, upending his empty bowl:
It is only a dusty dented bowl of tin;
Under my breath I say, 'This is Mambrino's helmet.'[1]
With these words, I observe my entry to the antic realm,
Where anything could be the wreckage of a dream.
Lucky is my animal familiar, conducting me
To moments of primal life, away from human-centeredness.
Lucky is my totem animal, now altered by nearness to Man,
Who leads me back around to the Nature I live within.
I run with my lodge brother, casting my eyes about
For things to gather up and keep close inside,
As gifts for the lodge partners I hope to run beside.


[1] Don Quxote 'recognized' a barber's basin as Mambrino's helmet and claimed it as his own. He believed that the helmet's true appearance had been altered by sorcery.