Where Does The Dog Go? Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Where does the dog go?

When the preachers are preaching
And the teachers are teaching

And the societal bowl is being passed
Around with the opposable thumbs,
Followed by bright eyes and egotistical,
Self-righteous smiles

And dollars flow religiously into
The collection bowl….

Where does the dog go?

Escaping the sermon of the human tongue,
He squats down low and crawls under the fence
At the edge of the parking lot.

Outside the master’s boarders he is free to
Follow his nose. Here, loping down the street,
He sees the world not through the old grey television set
Of his eyes, but through his wet, throbbing snout—
He tastes the world with this and his tongue, hanging out.

When a good breeze comes by, he gets a whiff
Of the still frozen snows from a mountain miles away,
And the golden taste of aspen leaves just before they fall….

Walking along, he can smell the fear and sadness of a
Cuckolded man and he can taste the whiskey on his breath….

He can smell the newly born love on the woman’s lips,
And can taste the swaying heat over her eager hips….

When children come to play with him for awhile, he enjoys
Their fingers, like sapling branches still to grow, running through
His fur-coat, and he sniffs deeply of their new feelings still stretching
Out into the world, and their flavor is pure without hurt.

So the dog goes along where he wills and as he whishes,
Not consciously understanding the ordered nature of man, but
Getting startling whiffs of how things run, the hungry hearts and
Damaged dreams spilling out of human vessels, like broken pots,
Wavering in bright colors about him….

And when he returns, he might get a pat or a bone,
But not often does his master think of where he’s been….

When the preachers are preaching
And the teachers are teaching
While the sun is the great warmth above it all

And the world of human thoughts reach out and
Intertwine in burry knots, the dog settles down at the feet
Of men, his illiterate master, and sees them pouring out into his world,
Reaching out beyond occupations and positions,
titles and incomes,
the dog smells them how they really are in the world under the sun
and loves them as he will.