Dog and Snow
BY PAUL S PIPER
Dog sees white. Arctic
light, the bright buzz in the brain
of pure crystal adrenaline. In a flash
he is out the door and across the street
looking for snowshoe hares, caribou, cats.
His wild ancestry ignited, Dog plunges
his nose into snow up to his eyes. He sees
his dreams. Master yells from the front porch
but Dog can’t hear him. Dog hears nothing
except the roar of the wind across the tundra,the ancient
existential cry of wolves, pure, devastating, hungry.
Time for crunchies. Taking many detours, Dog
returns to the porch. Let master think what he
wants. Freedom comes at a price.
Piper, Paul S. "Dog and Snow." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2014. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248718>.
As I scrolled through the poems in the, “Browse,” section of poetryfoundation.org I couldn’t read but a few words of the body of the various poems. For the most part all I could read was there title. At first there were a few that caught my eye. Some of the more vague ones with single word titles made me chuckle as I was not attracted to their sense of unknown. I wish not to read a poem that is simply called, “Pelican.” I simply don’t enjoy the ambiguity of it. But then I scrolled a little more and saw, “Dog and Snow.” So simple yet elegant. And the first line, “Dog sees white.” It was perfect.
Then I actually had to read it. And its simplicity continued until it grew into something much bigger. The dog’s absent-minded nature evolved into this symbol that I wrestled with in my head until it is given to me on a silver platter in the last sentence. Then I experienced the joy of reading the poem again knowing the dog represented freedom. It was similar to watching a crime show episode for the second time and knowing whom the killer was. Suddenly you see the looks in their eyes and you better understand how they end up being the murderer. That’s how it is with the dog. He’s not failing to hear his master’s call. Instead he is exercising his right to trounce about freely in the snow. And that’s why this poem speaks to me.
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