If you’ve ever lived with an animal that you have later missed dearly, this poem of William Merwin‘s will speak to you, I’m sure.
I don’t remember what led me to it late yesterday afternoon. We were sitting on the back deck. I was fiddling with small things. Checking my calendar for the week, adding reminders, finishing a blog post featuring a letter my dad got from a French surfer back in 1961.
For some reason, I found myself looking at a list of William’s poems on the website of the Merwin Conservancy, a nonprofit created to carry on his legacy of care for the native palm garden he and Paula created in lower Haiku, as well as his legacy of poetry, vision, and caring.
We had became friends sometime in the early 1980s when William’s curiosity about the Kahoolawe protest movement led him to contact me, and the result was several long conversations that eventually led to friendship spanning a number of years.
But that’s all another story. Back to yesterday. I scrolled through the list of his poems, chose one sort of at random, “Dream of Koa Returning.” It turned out an expression of William’s inexhaustible love of his chow chows. They reciprocated, and were very protective of both William and Paula.
I recall the first time we drove to see them on Maui. We parked among the trees, and could see William and one of the dogs in the distance. As we got out of the car, he called out a warning. “Don’t move. Stay very still until I get there,” he said, as he made his way over to introduce us to his dog, and establish that we were part of his family circle and not ones to be defended against. It worked, and we never had any issues with any of his dogs.
We feel about our cats like William felt about his chows. We’re bonded at some essential level.
And so his dream of Koa hit me surprisingly hard.
Sitting on the steps of that cabin
that I had always known
with its porch and gray-painted floorboards
I looked out to the river
flowing beyond the big trees
and all at once you
were just behind me
lying watching me
as you did years ago
and not stirring at all
when I reached back slowly
hoping to touch your long amber fur
and there we stayed without moving
listening to the river
and I wondered whether
it might be a dream
whether you might be a dream
whether we both were a dream
in which neither of us moved
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Your friend knew his Chow Chow well. My sister on the mainland had a collie-chow-chow mix who was fiercely intelligent, loyal, and protective of the family. We met her one time with a proper introduction that never had to be repeated. Thereafter, I would marvel at how she always knew we were family no matter how many years between visits. My sis thought she knew us by smell. They almost lost her to homeowner insurance scrutiny of Chows, German Shepard’s, Rottweilers, and Pit Bulls. Ultimately, the insurance carrier decided to continue homeowner’s insurance because she was only half Chow and had been through obedience training. Like many large dogs she didn’t have a long life, but she was my sister’s once-in-a-lifetime dog. She’s been gone many years now, but we still reminisce about her with much love.