ch.16, v.56-71

When thou doth ope thy mouth, my sweet companion,
And quoth from it the word for the sight of the eyes,
When it doth flee from thence,
Thou doth quoth the word "Blindness."

When thou doth speaketh thusly, my learned companion,
From the words of thy mouth,
A name for the hearing of the ears, how it doth grow quiet,
Then thou doth speak "Deafness" for its name.

But what sayest thou when all the rich raiment
Of all the many fragrance,
Yea, the tender sweetness and also the powerful pungency,
When all doth withdraw from my once-mighty muzzle?








Hast thou no single word there in thy awesome armory of words
With which thou can declare this loss--of among all mine, the heaviest?
Hast thou no name with which to tell it,
As I am cast thus adrift from knowing my world, and my way?

 
Exegesis and Commentary
I never realized that dogs could lose their sense of smell, but it certainly looks like Frida has, the way she sniffs around and around trying to locate the source of or fully take in a smell.

ch.16, v.38-55 (how old)

These our human companions, they perform tasks, innumerable, that are pleasing and good for dogkind.

Consider their storehouses: there they store that which is useful and, yea, also delicious.
They keep storehouses of both sedentary stillness and nomadic quickness,
Storehouses of volume both great and microscopic, and those of dimension less than great and greater than microscopic.
Thus we do enjoy the storehouse called "pocket" and that also called "cookie jar" and others called "cabinet" and those of the wintry airs called "fridge." Betimes, we gratefully greet the "grocery bags" that arrive upon a sudden, ripe with the luxurious and exotic scents of an extravagant hunt, and dispersed so suddenly as well into the wintry fridge and the temperate cabinet.
And the goodness and abundance stored in these storehouses,
These every dog knows by the knowingness of her nose.

But consider also the wisdom and ingenuity of our companions, how they know the contents of these treasuries,
How they do enumerate and calculate, yea, and also quantify.
Consider my companion, how she has signs for counting the biscuits and the hours and the perambulations of our ken, for cataloging the urinations and the defecations, and yea, also the livery treats called "pills."
She measures these in their assigned increments and accounts for them with solemn care.
She knows their repetition and their propagation and can signify even their accumulation.

And so when we do make our perambulations upon the paths of our territory,
And when we do there encounter those others who also perambulate upon these paths,
And they do see with the sight of their eyes the grey mask upon my face, and the testimony of my venerable jowl,
Then they do seek of my companion the answer to this great question, "How old is she?"

And my companion, she does consult the ledger of her weighty primate brain, she does swiftly calculate the sums of our perambulations, the moon's courses about us and our courses about the sun, and she does pronounce to them the measure of my being,
"She is Perpetual."

Exegesis and commentary
According the paperwork they had at Angell MSCPA when I adopted her, Frida is 15 years old this month.

ch.16, v.1-37 (years are as burdens)

 

I did once, my companion, hold you in awe.
I did regard the words of your mouth as commandments
Incontestable ... in your presence--
(but as the gaze of your eye was absent from me, not so much;
when the den was mine to traverse alone upon the agile paws of nervous anxiety,
then I must have to follow the multitudinous scent receptors of my snout 
unto the bounties of biscuits and kibble and pumpkins and olive oil and pens and underwear and tissues and laundry
that thoughtless primates had left strewn about in closed cabinets and behind doors closed only, neither bolted, nea, nor locked either)--
Yea, incontestable ... -ish.





















In those days you spake unto me with many words of commandment,
Words that I did know with the quickness of my quick ears--
You spake unto me the command "Leave it,"
And as I heard the command I did so leave a cornucopia of its,
Its beyond count and beyond compare--
I did avert the keenness of my snout,
Did neglect even the finest delicacies strewn by wanton human hands
Upon the pavements of our perambulation.

And you uttered to me also the command "No,"
And then also did I avert my gaze, and also my longing,
From the table upon which you made your daily repasts, infinite and sumptuous,
Yea, did avert my gaze even when your sumptuous repast awaited your return,
Unattended upon tables only as high as the jaws of a dog
About as high only as this, the height of my withers;

Nea, I transgressed not this command "no" even on the day you called "trash"--
I did forego the gifts of magnanimous bags, riven before me,
Their bounty, so putrid and so fragrant, spilling forth,
An intoxication to the scent receptors of my mighty nose.

Yea, in these days of my puppyhood, I was a compliant dog,
Strong in my will and abundant of my eagerness to please you,
Basking in these your rewards, the words of your mouth and the treats of your hand and the constancy of you.

Forgive me now, my companion, my grabbings, my growlings, and also my deafness--
Many years upon so many years again have stopped up my ears to these your commands.
Yea, their fabled quickness is now but a thing of fables, 
Also do these years weigh upon my canine and tenacious will,
Grown now weary and fragile like the unintelligently designed spine of a dachsund.
For while these heavy burdens do make this canis lupus neither more nor less hungrious,
Their weight vanquishes my inhibitious and overwhelms my familiaris.