It's Still Life

Day 24: Imagine you could communicate with one animal species. Which species would you choose and what would you ask them?

A Conversation with a Dog

The dog gives me that questioning look, a tilt of the head, and she says,

Youre so quiet what are you quiet about

She asks questions without punctuation. Without an inflection of curiosity. Without grammar. Without folds when speaking. That’s a human thing, she once told me, fenced-in words, defined, refined. Sublime sounds bursting out of a human’s head. You should learn to bark, she said.

And I tell the dog that I don’t know what I’m quiet about. Do I need a reason? I suppose that I do, so I start searching for an answer. The dog is still looking at me, head tilted, so I glance beyond her face to the wall, and to the clock on the mantelpiece, and to the window, and outside where the bark on a birch tree is peeling off and flapping like a kitchen towel in the wind. And she’s still looking at me, so I inhale and re-oxygenate my brain, which should help me think … and I look back at her again.

The room is filled with silence and my head is filled up with it too, and I ask the dog,

Is your head always filled with answers?

And the dog says, I dont need answers if I need one I will ask for one because everyone has answers I am only interested in questions.

what questions I ask, remembering that punctuation is an unnecessary ingredient when speaking to a dog.

And she quickly replies, when is dinner and when is breakfast and what is that smell and can I eat it and can we go for a walk by the stream so I can smell like rotting clay-soaked leaves

The dog pauses, scratches its ear, and says,

do you always carry around a shadow

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Note: I am dedicating this piece to a dog who shared its lifetime with me. Her final moments were in my arms, curled up like a rose chafer grub, and she silently left all those who loved her behind. There are times when I turn around expecting to see her standing behind me.

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Written for Day 24 of The Wildness Challenge. Artwork is created using Midjourney. Imagery and poems ©Misky 2023.