My Dog and My God

My dog Sophia sits this evening watching me,
attending to my every move.  I don’t move much.
She has been fed, and walked, and run, and now we sit,
amid my study’s clutter, within a sudden
stillness that obtains for us a momentary
meeting of the minds, quite like a conversation.

I love my dog, have loved my every dog, each being
his or her own, particular joy, and each,
by proving thus particular, becoming thus
beloved, has offered me a glimpse of how the God
may have deemed me loveable, if very often
disobedient, and very often reeking
of the death in which I’ve been inclined to roll.

Scott Cairns

Scott Cairns

Scott Cairns is the author of Compass of Affection: New and Selected Poems, and the memoir A Short Trip to the Edge, along with several other books. He is Professor of English at the University of Mis