Yet Untitled 136 - Out Came A Dog

When a lovely thing 🐶 emerges from a 🌀 vortex of dread 😱

Dearest Yet Untitler,

It’s a strange time of grating against the world! Exciting but not always comfortable. The poem below came to me in the last moments before wakefulness settled, when some accumulated discomfort had coagulated into panic.

I was surprised by the form in which the comfort came.

Leo. Panipat. C. 1996

Out Came A Dog

I wake up fitfully 
From an unsound sleep,
As something pricks me
From the dark of the deep.
The dark inside - all big and round
Much bigger than the darkness around.

Trepidation towards the in and out
Who to call to help me out?
There is she who sleeps at my side.
In her softer darkness, let her abide. 
Being alone in the dark hasn’t changed:
It’s still a place where spectres range,
That as a child I could not stand. 
Even now, you understand? 

As the chill creeps up my spine 
I call out for the eleventh time.
Who in this realm will answer my call
That's echoing down this cavern’s wall?
A teacher who saw themselves in me?
Maybe a friend who’d died early .
Those friendly spooks who rattled the spoons?
Childhood fairies under waxing moons?

Nobody comes. 
My brain fails at all its sums. 
The black hole telescopes 
My heart with my fear elopes
The tunnel spins, the light dims
Further. 
The protectors are mum
Before this ghastly, photo-negative sun!
And I, there, just the one,
Wonder: where the hell do I run?

Then, 
Something comes. It runs 
Towards me in the dark:
Quick feet across the sandy shore 
Of the inky blackness from before. 
Friend or foe? I do not know.
I brace myself for the thing to show.

With a yelp it, it leaps at me,
And then, suddenly the memory:
A sunny chair, greenery. 
When my arms held his wriggling form 
And the afternoon stretched on for long. 
How happy we were in that embrace.
In that moment. In that place. 
How I’d missed you, my little friend. 
I never thought we’d meet again. 

But we did. In this unlikely place:
While looking at the unintelligible face
Of doubt. Of dread. 
I scratch your ears. I hold your head. 
My little friend. 
You died. But you were never dead. 

Night dissolves and so does the dark. 
Where are you now? 
That garrulous face?
That piercing bark? 

You are where you need to be.
Whenever I’m lost, you’ll find me ❤️.

Afterword

I dedicate this installment to Leo, to the little time we had together, to the wonder of how those few days, that handful of hugs, extends into eternity.

I also want to acknowledge Lynda Barry, whose writing exercise called “If You Make a List Of All Dogs You Have Ever Known”, was definitely informing my imagination as I wrote. It’s towards the end of her book What It Is, also reproduced in this YU from the archives:

Also a shoutout to Teddy, Donnie, Sheena and Toffee. I would have been just as happy to see any of you bounding out of the dark to give me a hug.

Come say hello soon!

Have your pets visited you in your dreams? I’d love to hear about these dreams of yours. Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here.

As always, thanks for listening!

Lots of love

V