Something Symbolic

I just took our dog, Cooper, for a walk around Silverbell Lake.

Cooper hopped out of the pickup before I could leash him.
He had no long-range plans: he was just happy to be somewhere new.
He ran in tight circles fast enough to generate a dustdevil,
then came to be tethered. Just wayward youth, I thought,
practicing for the day he would give it a serious try.

I blue-bagged what we had come to encourage,
and then we dogged it around the whole lake.
A great blue heron measured him for size, but decided
to fly out to the tiny island supporting their nest, instead.

Every tuft of dried grass--
and year-end in Tucson
has a lot of dried grass--
required a territorial marker.
Cooper is young, and I am old,
but we understand each other.
We live symbolically,
not actually, in bursts.

We stopped to talk to a man curious
about what a Mini-Doberman and Chihuahua
dog look like, and traded coyote tales.
He used to have three dogs, but now
he has one: there are coyotes at his house, too.
Cooper and I watched three large coyotes
cross the road just ahead of us, last night.
Cooper was all bluster: I all pretend.

I tried not to think about the guy
who mocked a disabled person,
boasted about his sexual prowess,
showed his disgust at women, and
immigrants, and laws against torture.
He is going to be our President.

I was glad to be walking with Cooper.
I began to look for a couple of tufts
of grass, myself. Something symbolic.

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