dog & poem

Yesterday, I forgot to introduce my dog, so now I'll tell you about Jamie. That's her name, but we usually call her Jimbob. I don't know why, exactly, as she's a girl, but the name seems to suit her. I almost didn't get to have her.

     She came along eleven years ago. I was shopping in McKinney, Texas with two friends. Jamie came up to me, all scroungy and skinny. At the time, I was looking for a dog, as my beloved Oreo had died a few months prior at age twelve. I was already scheduled to look at a dog the next day and had convinced myself that I would take that one. It was a rescue being fostered. So Jamie spoke to me with her eyes, but I was uncertain. What did I know of her? She was obviously a stray and mangy.

     I deliberated. One friend said take her, the other said don't. Jamie kept following me into a garden shop. I couldn't decide what to do. Next thing I knew, the sales lady had called her husband to come get the dog. She wanted her. I figured it was fate, and let the dog go, despite my instinct to grab her and run.

      Next day, the foster dog turned out vicious, so I knew I'd made a mistake. I felt that God had tried to give me the dog, but I had not accepted the gift. A friend at work said to try to get her back. This had not occurred to me, as I am a person that usually just accepts my lot. I couldn't sleep for thinking of that dog and her eyes. I tracked down the sales lady (which took a whole week), and she agreed to hand Jamie over to me. Jamie was a good girl, but had been eating the chickens, as the woman lived on a farm.

     Honestly, the moment she said I could have the dog was one of the happiest of my life. I kept pondering the fact that sometimes something is meant for us, and God clearly hands it to us, but we make a mistake and don't receive it. Even then, we can learn to open our hand and that thing meant for us can still find us. I sometimes wonder if Jamie is some kind of angel. That sounds silly, but really, she's no ordinary dog. She's the sweetest girl ever.

Here's a poem that I wrote recently:

Invisible

And now we

come to

the beauty of

a peach,

wind

on skin,

piano notes

absorbed,

the brilliance

of sun.

Too much

for only one.

Too much

for everyone

here swaying,

swaying,

to a tune

so exquisite

it hurts.

This poem is kind of about how incredibly beautiful the world can be sometimes if you can let yourself go slack, or invisible and absorb it. Sometimes those moments just happen. The day I got Jamie was something like that.