ch.3, v.41-86 (journey to mansfield)

O, dog, what augury whimpers to you of trials ahead?
Does a stench like sickness poison the break of day?
Does the kibble in your breakfast bowl form unto a fearsome snarl
warning you back to the warmth of your den?
No, dog, you cannot know this day before you have walked its paths.

For tho' the humans are puny of olfaction
and hear not the rustling of small rodents at many rods distance
still they view the plain from on high with keen eyes
and find us many good bowers of refreshment and sustenance
and carry magically about their person infinite stores of meaty treasures.

So on this day as on those past we embark upon our perambulation
with the humans--my companion, Karen Who Is Tall, and the Good Man Len--
who follow a broad path that opens unto us the verdant forest of this mountainside.
It is a generous habitat rich in smells and abundant of streams and mud holes.
I perform many and frequent ablutions anointing my coat with the goodness of the earth.


The path before us narrows but also the canopy becomes more dense
giving to us its protection from the rising sun of the day.
We slake our thirst and break the bread of midday upon tables of granite
where broad prospects of the long valleys below delight the eyes of the humans.
Many steep boulders we ascend sometimes where other hands
have crafted stairs from the stone so that we may climb.
Here now a cleft breaks apart our path and we must make as to leap across.





My companion, do you not see the awesomeness of the rock
that it begins to grow too high? The clefts in the path, a bit too broad?
And the forest about us, does it not shrink back from the sky--
the trees clinging with roots ever more naked to the steep face of granite?


Now you see the shade of the canopy has departed from us
and the lusciousness of the mud holes are seen no more.
No fragrance reaches my muzzle here unless it be the acrid absence of moisture.
The rich odor of earth tree and varmint is all behind us now.
Nor does the keenness of my ear discern above us the rush of water.
Your flasks colorful and transparent carry only a pittance of libation,
nay, not even enough in which to cool my paw.

Where do we climb to, humans? Where do we journey that there is no path
no water and no shade?
O the fire of the sun beats upon the many dark hairs of my head and back.
It bakes the stone beneath my pads.
My companion, your way is not good. It burns my brow and foot.
It parches my tongue which now unrolls almost to the slate upon which we climb.

Look upon me and know the unwisdom of your path.
See not only yourselves, nay, not if you would have us with you.
You must know also the furred hide that sweats not
and also the tender unshod pad.

This is my stopping place, this stunted tree, its twisted branches
shall intercede with the sun on my behalf and I shall dig from the scant dirt beneath it
a wanderer's portion of coolness. Nay, move me not. Here I remain.





Exegesis and Commentary

Here is one of the first opportunities I've had to record one of Frida's most obvious trials of faith--I think. It's hard for me to say, b/c the grounds for her despair are so substantial, if we are the object of her faith: when the dogs commit their way unto the humans, we so often fail them.

Anyway, our first day's hike, up the Crescent Ridge trail on Mt. Mansfield, was ultimately not the most successful from the dog's point of view. I don't think Frida actually had heat stroke, but we might not have been so far off, and it was good she made her limits very clear: her obstinacy, unlike Job's, won the day, and we turned back down the trail, tho' by that point she had to be coaxed along until we made it back to the place of plentiful mud holes, which she dearly loves.

And she was right. Len continued up to the summit, and he reported that the trail got even more challenging just up around the next bend, where he had to climb to continue. He came back down the Halfway House trail, which he described as "fit for neither man nor beast."

But we did see other people on these trails with dogs, so it is not entirely dog unfriendly, and of course Frida has had other fine camping and hiking experiences in Vermont, Western Mass., and New Hampshire. Mt. Mansfield was good, but challenging, hiking--it was just important to choose a trail carefully and to know when reaching the summit had become less important than enjoying the experience. But it was beautiful.