Dogging One’s Trail

Today Podge went walkabout - and not because he 

felt we didn’t want him around, that’s explained too 

easily; he’s well-founded with unrestrained choices, 

but he strayed - and then stayed away ’til mid arvo; 

It’s rare vacancy without his presence, a rustic kind 

of silence exhaling uneasily just beyond hearing, or 

a feigned movement sensed out of eye’s range like 

a restrained imminence of something's purpose 

Checked his normal port of call - a waste, either he 

wasn’t there or was otherwise engaged such that it 

impaired his usually excellent hearing; we shudder 

at the thought, and thus an uneasiness took hold 

Now if we boldly read something into it its because 

his impeccable sense of ceremony, time & occasion 

is without question amazing, to go without food isn’t 

obviously a blazingly error, its anathema in his case 

And he returned - quite brazenly I’d add - intrepid to 

the letter; there wasn’t an undue celebration, just an 

old-matey, back-scratchy ballyhoo he likes us to get 

into when - “its nearly dinner time, dontchaknow” 

Interrogation wont resolve the why of his escapade, 

nor will it excuse our trepidation, but we’ll thank his 

unabashed allegiance to a canine code of silence - 

old as an adage of dogging one’s trail 

© 20 May 2014, I. D. Carswell