I walk along Zarzarmora Creek just about every day, reporting the news in my notebooks. The other morning, a big black dog — part Lab, I think — ran the tame ducks into the water and jumped in after them.
The dog swam like an animal born to water. The ducks and geese stayed a few yards ahead. Once they were in the water, the birds weren’t frightened, although the dog, swimming confidently, pursued them for 100 yards.
This section of the creek runs through a park, and people walking by stopped to watch. They wondered where the dog had come from and whom he belonged to. This is entertainment in my neighborhood.
But further down the creek, there is a duck with a broken wing and one with a crippled foot. And so I watched the dog with delight and dread.
In his poem “Over the North Jetty,” William Stafford wrote about watching a flock of geese go by and seeing one laggard peel off.
If you follow an individual away like that
a part of your life is lost forever,
beating somewhere in darkness, and belonging
only to storms that haunt around the world
on that risky path just over the wave.
One of my convictions is that the world would be a better place if everyone owned a copy of Stafford’s poems. He finds words for things that many of us feel, and don’t quite know how to express.
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