ONE SMALL DOG

Brewing for a while now
The time has come to tell the story

I killed a dog
The images are horrendous
They stay and stay
They haunt me

Everyone says it wasn’t my fault
But it was
A person can always do more
Can always do better

A dark street
An old lady
A small dog

Slowing down – to 10 miles per hour
Not enough

Believing the dog is on a leash
Assuming

Never assume

Feeling – the bump – ever so slight
Stopping

Someone screaming
A woman
Loosing her connection
To her dog

Getting out of the car
Heart pounding
Walking back

A small dog
Flailing its legs in the air
Stillness

A small dog
Lying in a pool of blood
Empty of its life force
The blood – a blanket of comfort

Deep sadness
Chest hurting
Getting cold
Feeling very alone

Grandson – 14 – sees the dog
running for the tire
Hears the bump
I must carry his image along with mine

The woman
Reaching for her dog
Standing up
Empty handed
Confused
Watching
the dog chasing
the car moving
Unbelieving
of what she sees

It can’t be so
But it is

A secret
It can’t be told

My throat gets tight
I have no words
Just feelings
And hurt
And guilt
And aloneness
Unbearable aloneness

This is my burden
It can’t be softened
It can’t be shared
It has become a part of me
Living in my chest

-originally written December 31th , 2008 at app. 7:00 pm
Three months later…

Healing
Forgiving
Recovering

As in a movie
The images go backwards
The blood slowly drawn back
into the body
Of the dog
Where it belongs
The flailing of legs stopping
The dog laying
Peacefully

I pick it up
Take it in my arms
Dance with it
Offer it
to the heavens
to the goodness
to the all-ness

My image becomes a picture
A photograph
Of the dog

I lay the photograph
In a box lined with purple velvet
I bring the box to the woman

As she opens the lid and acknowledges the photograph
Strangely and beautifully
Tiny puppies
Appear through the picture
Their front paws on the edge of the box
They lean forward
Curious and ready – for life

For Richard

I walk outside

The flowers are fresh
Their fragrance sweet
The fig tree overflowing

I pick a fig
It is warm from the sun
Warm as Richard’s body
When I lie in his arms

Then, the warmth gone astray
He goes away

I look around
It seems
He is still here
In the figs
In the air

Where does love go
When you send it off
Into the atmosphere

“The Moody Blues” are playing
Playing for us
Together we find
The love we left behind

Outside
I stand
See you taking off

Left alone
I feel all we were
I stretch my arms – towards
Nothing
and you are gone
As everything I know
Is no longer here

There are so many feelings
Can I put them in a box
Save them
And savor them
Take them out
For a special time

Massage them in my heart
And in my hands

Can I run away
To that place
That place of feelings
To that place that hurts so much
That is so raw
That it speaks no words

As I seemed very affected by a piece of news appearing in the papers almost a year ago – I first wrote a poem, then made a song – about this boy in Junior High School who allegedly killed his teacher.

Here goes:

GUNS

In this world
We make guns
When someone uses them
We act with great surprise

A child in a school
Is disparate
For love and attention

He could talk or cry
But the Gun is there
It feels like the right revenge
Towards this cruel world
A quick and easy solution
For a troubled mind

Could he express
the longing
The loneliness
To the world
If there were no Guns?

Could we see him?
really see him?

In this world
We make guns
We need to kill
The enemy

We need to kill
He who thinks differently
He who looks different
He who is just him
Not us
Not like we

Can we conform him
Using a Gun
To be like us

Or – should we just
Get rid of him
Wash our hands
Walk away

With him gone
We now have
One less thing to worry about
Or do we?

The worry we had before
The threat of that which is different
Moving into our world
We now have to carry
Forever
In our guts
In our hearts

How strange
How amazingly strange
The human mind works

I wonder?

If there were
No Guns
No spears
No clubs
No…

Would we hurt each other
Along other paths?
Would we find other ways to “lash out”
At that which is outside us
In an attempt
In a hopeless attempt
to understand
That
Which lies within

???

Zitta originally written 10/22-13