My dog Sophia sits this evening watching me,
attending to my every move.  I don’t move much.
She has been fed, and walked, and run, and now we sit,
amid my study’s clutter, within a sudden
stillness that obtains for us a momentary
meeting of the minds, quite like a conversation.

I love my dog, have loved my every dog, each being
his or her own, particular joy, and each,
by proving thus particular, becoming thus
beloved, has offered me a glimpse of how the God
may have deemed me loveable, if very often
disobedient, and very often reeking
of the death in which I’ve been inclined to roll.