Borders need Boundaries…?
Off-prompt today as I’m doing day 5 and 6 today (was out and about yesterday) and this had started forming in my head already.
Something light, silly and sound-oriented, which occurred to me after a chat on the train yesterday – and the general number of talks you end up having when with a dog. I hope you enjoy it…
Talking Dogs
And on the train
she says,
That labradoodle
she got the blues
if she didn’t have shoes
while she snoozed.
And on the towpath
I say,
These Borders
they need boundaries
to be happy. To taste, to see
the limits of two countries:
the line between
Dog and Me.
And in the pub
he says,
Our mongrel –
his history’s unknown
but what kind of a home,
what breed of person,
could think to leave him
on his own?
And she says,
That labradoodle
she’d choose the shoes –
but she wouldn’t chew.
She knew whose
shoes were whose.
She’d place them,
neatly, at the foot
of your trews.
And none of us knew
– that shoe-choosing labradoodle,
my Border and my boundaries,
his mongrel, left alone –
none of us knew
or needed
human names.
Skylab Stories 