The prompt for today. “This is a fun one – it’s a prompt developed by the comic artist Lynda Barry, and it asks you to think about dogs you have known, seen, or heard about, and then use them as a springboard into wherever they take you.”
Today’s featured online journal is Plume, which has published more than 120 issues since 2011! All of their archives are available, too, making Plume’s website a great place to discover new-to-you poets and poems. From their latest issue, I’ll point you toward David Wojahn’s “Threnody: December 2020” and Alan Shapiro’s “Sweet Nothings.”
First, I’d like to wish everyone celebrating Easter today,a very happy and blessed Easter Sunday.
My poem for the prompt ‘The English Garden’
Whoodles, Cavoodles, Schnoodles
Are one of a kind
Labradors, beagles and Golden retrievers
are warm, loving and kind
But of all the dogs I’ve seen
There’s one I remember
crystal clear-
a small, brown pug standing
under an oak tree, watching curiously
a girl in a candy-pink smock dress
gazing at the flowers.
‘Twas the sweetest sight I did see,
the dog and the child locking eyes
amidst the blooms of Spring.
All of a sudden the little girl ran
and the pug ran too, after.
Round and round, her podgy legs went
until she reached her mother
and there, she hid behind her.
It brought the muzzled-face to a stop
and made him look up with a frown.
The owner, a petite English lady
in a white chiffon frock looked cross
‘You really shouldn’t bring your child
to the park, until she’s been trained,’ she said, her voice curt
Leaving the young mother in shock
“Maybe it’s your dog who needs to be trained,”
said the father, standing near.
To which the lady, her face red, replied,
‘Why, he’s a pup! He only just came home yesterday,’
“All the more reason why,” the father said with a smile
and held his little girl’s hand and walked away.
This poem is based on a personal experience in the English garden in Munich. My daughter must have been 6 or 7 when this happened. I asked her today if she remembered this incident and which breed of dog it was. She laughed and replied, ‘It was a pug. How can I forget?” And I knew I had to write the poem to seal the memory.
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