Large Fierce Mammal

Archaeological evidence suggests that we Humans of today owe our success as a species to the forging long ago of a wondrously strategic alliance – comradeship with the ancestors of that most noble thing called the Dog. Alas, the benefit of that linkage has not served our four legged counterpart so well, but that is not the point of today’s bit of ear bending. My point is that the Human of today, and the Dog of today, are stirred in their motivations and reactions to stimuli by instincts honed to assure competitive success in the world that existed in a time when “home” and “cave” or “tent” were synonymous.

I’ve spoken of this before, most notably in my poem Hunter’s Soul, inspired by another Man and his Dog, and placed here for your edification back in the waning days of 2012. What I present today was inspired by a recent, and actually quite brief, incident shared by me and my Dog Milo, he with whom I appear on the banner that forms the masthead of this piece.

One From Two

By LFM

The slivered moon casts meagre sheen,
Upon the trail our feet have been.
Now resting under shadowed Tree,
We watch that trail, my Dog and me.

The Winter forest’s perfect shroud
Doth take each step and cry aloud
That something walked and passed this way –
A page to read in hunt of prey.

We know of this, and something more –
What tracks the one who’s gone before,
And follows him so upwind goes
Will soon bring scent to Trusty nose.

Lest any thing with hunger yen
To taste the flesh of Dogs or Men,
We’ve passed upwind then doubled back
To see what might be on our track.

There we watch, my Dog and me,
Shadowed by accomplice Tree.
Tuned to judge who comes to sight,
And set our minds to flee or fight.

A scene as old as both our kind,
Inspires thrill from primal mind,
As Comrades poised in hide of shade
Ready teeth and gleaming blade.

There beneath our looming Tree,
We feel the ties, my Dog and me,
Built of Blood and Trust and Heart,
That shaped our kind back to the start.

No Dire Wolf is on our trail,
No warring clan of dark travail,
Yet what we call modernity –
It matters not beneath our Tree.

One hand ebon coat doth stroke,
The other, Walnut hilt bespoke,
We rise for home, in Nature bound,
  One Creature made from Man and Hound.