Sow seeds every day
Flowers, grasses, trees, or weeds
And leave a green wake.

* 9 of 9 strategies for a creative life

First there was Bruno. A medium-size mutt who looked a bit like a miniature collie. He belonged to my grandmother, and when she died, Bruno became mine. I was ten.. The first funeral I attended was that of my Grandmother. I remember black patent leather shoes and a coffin. Bruno would climb over the chain-link fence in our backyard, run off to the woods, and return home smelling like skunk. Eventually he was struck by a vehicle, and when he died I was devastated. I was fourteen. My mother hugged me and said, “time heals all wounds,” that ridiculous cliché. That was so unlike her.

Then came Sniffles, whom I adopted while I was in my first year of graduate school, just before I slipped into the final stage of a major depression. My friend Mary had said, “Nettie. you need something to take care of.”  Shortly after Sniffles’ adoption from the Kentucky Humane Society, I withdrew from school, returned home to my mother, and slept 20 hours per day in her bed for a month. During the other four hours I sat at her kitchen table, silent. Sniffles was a beautiful white-haired medium-size mixed Terrier. He spent hours stalking squirrels among the giant Oaks along Eastern Parkway, moving one paw at a time. Most of his stalking consisted of stillness.  He was six when we began having children and mysteriously appears in every family photograph. All five of us were there when we put him down. I refer to him as Mythic Sniffles.

We adopted Blue from the Jefferson County Animal Shelter. Supposedly a corgi/border collie mix, and he was terrified of fireworks and storms. Every Sunday we’d hike within the Mount St. Francis Nature Sanctuary, and when I missed our turn he would stop, demanding I go the right direction. When he heard gun shots from surrounding properties, he would turn around, occasionally looking back over his left shoulder to confirm that I was following him home. At the age of seven he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The seizures were horrific. All five of us were there when we put him down. Bubby Little Buddy Blue.

Half Pitbull, half Great Pyrenees, Lexi was adopted from the Woodstock Animal Foundation in Lexington, Kentucky. She is a big white dog with a big personality and is the most social member of our family. She has one solid black ear and the other ear is polka dotted. A large black heart appears on her right side. Sometimes she finds herself in trouble when she goes off trail at The Mount, but she is surprisingly adept at following directional gestures. She drools, snores, drips water on my hardwood floors, rolls in wild animal dung, and is more stubborn than I am. When she dies I will be devastated, and my mother will not be here to console me. 

I wait for her every day
My quiet, messy refuge
Is for her
The quiet place where
She takes a good deep breath
After tossing her bra
Standing next to
A pile of dirty laundry
Where her work clothes are thrown
After she’s patted herself down
And checked all the pockets twice
She steps under the steaming water
And fills me with decadent
Honey and pomegranate 
Much better than the jeans
That smell of hickory smoke 
Or the damp, sweaty socks
That leave grooves around her calves

I’ve been wrestling roots
and old-growth demons
   first-born
   peacemaker
   penitent
   phobophobic
   imposter  

What if
I dig my fingers
deep in my own soil
solely for the sensation
of turning handfuls of my humus self
back toward the sun  

What might it mean
to tell my story in this season
sub-lithospheric
cave-painting by torchlight
my own song echoing
mitochondrial magma  

What if mud in my hair and worn amber beads
are the loftiest adornments
neanderthal soul
meant to wander fault lines
unearthed
   free of any name
   that came before

firm as a fresh pack of cigarettes 

It’s monsooning in ohio
on the way to Erie
and I pull over into 
the slow lane when im
afraid, like I did last Friday
when they told me you were gone 

sometimes I caught
that look on her face
                               it hurt

on those nights I knew
                       what it meant
                                     to be
                                              on the edge

Death comes for us all.

You don’t notice when you are

Young and filled with fresh desire

Only when your cat gets hit by a car

And you long for your snuggle buddy

Whose face is now frozen in grimace

Or your grandmother dies,

Erasing the link to how it was when

Shutting off a part of you forever

Death becomes intimate when

Your mother, father, brother, son

Are only dust and memories

Then you see a darkness

Hovering close to your own

Worn mirrored face.

Yes, it comes for us all.

When Death beckons, let him

Take my hand to dance me away