Your dog Sam seems happy to ride
In your arms and come back today
To the more cultivated, civilized side
From misadventures of yesterday.

Your grim lips remind, even in joy,
That wild nature with impudence
Its most ardent admirers can toy —
As it hides masked ambivalence.

Did after dashing rabbit Sam rush,
And far, through damp forest swamp,
Cat claw, alder, slashing brush,
And slushy muskeg make you tromp?

Know gray wolves would, as night fell,
Hearing his yelping and barking run,
Hone on him — hounds from hell —
That he‘d not live to see the sun?

Yet he evaded that dismal plight,
‘Cause you were out there also,
Shrieking his name to the night,
Confounding rapacious virtuoso?

“Dawn drew his whimper to my shriek,
Rabbits gone with yesterday’s sun.
He’ll not be out tomorrow to seek,
Nor to chase, yelp, bark, and run!

He can run rabbits in sleep and smile,
Yes, this was much too close a call.
Oh, he’ll be grounded quite a while,
In fact, not gain freedom at all!

Wolves and coyotes eat every pet,
It’s so hard to ever be on guard.
I swore little Sam they’d never get,
But poof— if they leave the yard.

So Sam and I will stay real close,
Let rabbits be what rabbits will be.
For trailing slated for Sam’s nose,
Is police leash work for the OPP*"

*Ontario Provincial Police

© 2006 R. Leland Waldrip