ch. 6, v.19-44 (journey to cape)

Perambulation the Third

And upon the morning of the second day
We ventured from this cape of glacial deposit
Further upon a tenuous scapulary of sediment and sand.

Behold in this refuge such a myriad of paths
To astonish the expectation of even dogs most dissolute.

Find ye o wandering dogs beneath the pads of your paw
The way of timber made straight and plane
A bridge of passage upon the atlantic tides.


Find ye here the way of coarsened sand
Dug among the bent and sparsely branched trees
As by the industrious diggings of the terrier known as jack russell.



Or here the way of the fine and softened grains
Smooth among the flat-top of grasses at the edge of land.



Yea, but all these welcoming ways are walks only tired and pedestrian
When compared against this, o glory of glories,
The Way of the Water,
Wherein the unending channels of libation and ablution
May carry a dog above and before all other elements.

The hide of my unsweating body
I sink into your cooling bath of redemption.
I walk as floating along your uplifting chemistry.
I wish never to depart from these your aqueducts of deepest clarity.



Upon the hour of our return
The sea has worked a wondrous confluence
And the way of timber and the flat-top of grasses
Have become one with the Way of Water.




Exegesis and Commentary
Well, apparently there is no underestimating the value of water to St. Frida. Here as everywhere we have traveled she will plunge herself into any pool of water during a walk. In fact, at Branbury State Park in Vermont a few years ago, we only just caught her before she shot down a water-carved funnel of stone into the Falls of Lara, which really might have been the end of her.

She is not, however, a swimmer, which makes the two of us alike. We love the water, we revere it, we find a certain transcendence in it, but neither one of us swims well, ondine as water spirit notwithstanding. I'm not, however, quite as willing to step blithely off into whatever body of water presents itself; fortunately, I had my Bean rubber shoes on for our return trip through the tidal flats of Wing Island.

ch. 6, v.10-18

Perambulation the Second
Here the salted wind has the force of a giant mastiff
Thundering across the unguarded expanse of the sea to buffet us with unfathomable growls.
We must pursue our way with dogged determination,
Our puniness finding a seam of vincibility,
In which our reward.


For here only the beauty of the poodle's ears held aloft like unto the benedictine headdress,
And through our great exertion the exultation of making our path.







Celebrate ye dogs allowed with the leaping and twisting
And the mixing of silica deep in the layers of your coat.

ch. 6, v.1-9 (journey to cape)

On this goodly cape of sand there is a seasoning upon the air--a seasoning as of the the corny triangular snack that falls too rarely to the floor of our kitchen when my companion nourishes herself in haste in the moment that suspends between her evening return and our evening perambulation.

But also on this goodly cape of sand the days unroll unfettered by such hastefulness and make instead a devotion of perambulation upon perambulation.

Perambulation the First
This path leads us we know not where and there without worry.
Even be it not one but many paths switching our small pack at each bend
Still we follow with well-seasoned confidence.
For ever aside us attends this inlet, a mutt of river and marsh,
Good in odor and bright with reflection.



Yay, the nones of this spring might blow a stinging blast upon our hides
But for this company of timber, a generous palisade of pine that is pitchy and oak scrubby.




Exegesis and Commentary

A weekend on the Cape in March to get away from routine and worry. Our first walk was at the Mashpee River Woodlands. It's odd now to see these pix of us so wrapped up against the cold, but at the time the weather seemed quite wonderful: brisk but good in the sun.

There were several more walks before the trip was over. After many months of fermentation, they seem ready to emerge from Frida's individual experience now.