Noticing the Day
Lola has a high nasal whine that usually indicates a need to pee.
I sigh, leave the desk, and clatter down the stairs to fetch
The much chewed leash.
Out into the mid-morning January day.
Be a good girl, I mumble, wishing I had brought my cell phone.
At least I could see my emails.
Lola walks deliberately to a spot in the sunshine.
This is the third time in an hour we have made this small walk.
I am not patient. I have a headache.
However, something about her gently waving tail
stops me from muttering a cuss word.
I simply stand.
Lola waits, head up, for who knows what.
I notice the angle of her velvety head.
chittering birds, a far off car,
the lazy puttering of a small plane.
The slight breeze tickles my arms.
I decide to see how long it will take
for Lola to move again.
We stand there, noticing the day.
I remember doing this as a small child,
Swaying slowly on a swing, in my sun-filled yard.
Lola lifts her head, sniffs.
We amble into a patch of stronger sunlight.
I notice an impossibly blue sky,
beyond our towering pines.
Loveliness exists in the urban suburbs,
even here.
Lola sits.
I remove my shoes and feel grass, cold earth
Waiting for me to love it again.
January 2014
