Transcript

I’m Major Jackson and this is The Slowdown.

I closely watched our dog Finn this summer in the Green Mountains; I looked to see if he behaved differently than when we’re in the city. In Nashville, he is confined to our courtyard and back alley. He is very friendly with humans but loses his marbles when a dog is within a football field of us. So we don’t walk him as much as we’d like.

His joy galloping up the hillside in Vermont, free of his leash, is the epitome of animal delight. His dog endorphins go off. His sense of smell puts him into an exalted category of revelry that is almost indecent. If you have a dog like mine, you know what I’m talking about. Whiffs of ferns, fungi, organic matter act on his body like energy boosters. He becomes a rocket; he zips and runs in circles and pauses only for a second before he’s blasting through the forest around our home.

If only we possessed in greater number such unadulterated moments, triggered by nature and the presence of humans. If only we could awaken in each other similar bands of pleasure, if only nature’s smells reached our cerebral cortex with as much ecstasy, I think we would work to rid the earth of fossil fuels and we would take a firmer stand against war and the domestic gun violence that occurs far too frequently because of laxed laws.

Dogs have a lot to teach us. Learning to care about the land and people is to live daily in the fullness of existence, such that we come to cherish and love those close to us and beyond. Today’s poem illustrates the intertwined relationship between the natural world and human emotions, offering us a glimpse into the complexities of love and loss amidst the cyclical beauty of life.

The Clearing
by Jane Kenyon

The dog and I push through the ring
of dripping junipers
to enter the open space high on the hill
where I let him off the leash.

He vaults, snuffling, between tufts of moss; 
twigs snap beneath his weight; he rolls 
and rubs his jowls on the aromatic earth;
his pink tongue lolls.

I look for sticks of proper heft
to throw for him, while he sits, prim
and earnest in his love, if it is love.

All night a soaking rain, and now the hill
exhales relief, and the fragrance 
of warm earth….The sedges 
have grown an inch since yesterday,
and ferns unfurled, and even if they try
the lilacs by the barn can’t
keep from opening today.

I longed for spring’s thousand tender greens,
and the white-throated sparrow’s call
that borders on rudeness. Do you know—
since you went away
all I can do
is wait for you to come back to me. 

“The Clearing” by Jane Kenyon from JANE KENYON: COLLECTED POEMS © 2005 The Estate of Jane Kenyon. Used by permission of the Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press.