Heard read by Garrison Keillor, on Writer’s Almanac very early this morning while writing a paper:
Science
By Jim Harrison from Saving Daylight. © Copper Canyon Press. (Buy.)
It was one of those mornings utterly distorted by the night’s dreams.
Why go to court to change my name to Gaspar de la Nuit in order to
avoid thinking of myself as a silly, fat old man? At midmorning I
looked at the dogs as possibilities for something different in my life.
I was dogsitting both daughters’ dogs plus our own: Lily, Grace, Pearl,
Harry, Rose and Mary. I shook the biscuit box and they assembled in
the living room on a very cold windy morning when no one wanted
to go outside except for a quick pee and a bark at the mailman. I sang,
“He’s got the whole world in his hands,” as they waited for their snack.
Harry was embarrassed and furtive and tried to leave the room but I
called him back. I tried, “Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas
today,” and Lily, the largest of the dogs, became angry at the others
who looked away intimidated. I tried something religious, “The Old
Rugged Cross,” to no particular response except that Mary leapt up
at the biscuit box in irritation. I realized decisively that dogs don’t care
about music and religion and thus have written up this report. This
scarcely makes me the Father of the A-bomb, I thought as I flung the
contents of the full box of biscuits around the room with the dogs
scrambling wildly on the hard maple floor. Let there be happy chaos.
-cvj
May 8th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Amen,
Our Beagle is so singularly focused on food and how to obtain it, that he’s got no room in his canine cranium for anything else. Were he able to jump on the counter and wrestle an entire turkey breast to the floor, I suspect it would be a “religious” experience as far as I can tell.
Elliot
May 9th, 2006 at 5:41 am
I think our mistake was ever giving them a ball to run and fetch, now it is an obsession as well. Have to hide it, just to have some piece and quiet.
It’s strange how the animal can reveal it’s dominance over one another?
If you have had animals for a time, such a thing as standing over another, asserts some kind of message, in what ever form? Peeing, and “the smell” as to marking their place in the world.
Females and territory is another one.
Having a litter just makes them very possesive sometimes about their homes? Protectng the little ones, even when they are gone.
Tried to look deeper into the article but on dial up it is hard at this time of the morning, as duty calls. So will have to look for the science connection later, or see the connection written by someone.
May 9th, 2006 at 9:24 am
I love Garrison Keillor.
May 9th, 2006 at 11:52 am
gorgeous writing!