But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands
gloved with green You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger
on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.
You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look
of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite
every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,
you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,
thought often it will be mysterious, like the white foam
that bubbles up at the top of the bean pot over the red kidneys
until you realize foam’s twin is blood
-Barbara Ras
from You Can’t Have It All
The collection of poems that this is from is called, Bite Every Sorrow.
The cover shows a water color of four dogs. I am trying to write about the black dog, depression and just reading the title my spirit pinged. Seeing the dogs, one black, I took the book away and began to read.
Poetry is feeding me right now.
Babs had me at clown hands.
I own the black dog. And I think he would bite every sorrow for me, if he could.
Esther always said that if that dog–so handsome, brave, loyal, bright, considerate and kind–if he were a man, she would date him.
The pup, on the other hand, is not cut of the same cloth.
Yesterday Andy referred to Fudge as “dumb as a stump.” I still laugh, every time I think of him spitting out those words in utter frustration.
We tell the pup often that it is a good thing he is so cute.