Poem for a Dead Dog

Poem for a Dead Dog My dog has died. I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine. Some day I'll join him right there, but now he's gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners and his cold nose, and I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky for any human being,I believe in a heaven I'll never enter. Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-like tail in friendship. Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth, of having lost a companion who was never servile. His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine withholding its authority, was the friendship of a star, aloof, with no more intimacy than was called for, with no exaggerations: he never climbed all over my clothes filling me full of his hair or his mange, he never rubbed up against my kneelike other dogs obsessed with sex. No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need, the attention required to make a vain person like me understand that, being a dog, he was wasting time, but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,he'd keep on gazing at me with a look that reserved for me alone all his sweet and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me,and asking nothing. Ai, how many times have I envied his tail as we walked together on the shores of the sea in the lonely winter of Isla Negra where the wintering birds filled the sky and my hairy dog was jumping about full of the voltage of the sea's movement: my wandering dog, sniffing away with his golden tail held high, face to face with the ocean's spray. Joyful, joyful, joyful,as only dogs know how to be happy with only the autonomy of their shameless spirit. There are no good-byes for my dog who has died, and we don't now and never did lie to each other. So now he's gone and I buried him, and that's all there is to it.

Dan has finally arrived

The start of a new season 2011

Ronan's Parsnips

The Aardvark and the Parsnip


“Why aardvark? ” inquired the parsnip. The aardvark paused in his digging to consider this.“It doesn’t seem to sum you up very well”, This irritated the aardvark. “Well what’s so great about parsnip? ”The parsnip paused in its pausing to consider this, “It’s succinct. I don’t wish to cause offence. But why not have a name that describes you as a bow backed digger with a large nose…and very soft ears.” “But that doesn’t sum me up either.” The parsnip was confused and inquired of the aardvark what would in fact sum him up.“Frank, I’d like to be Frank. Frank who dreams about sunlight and warm rain. Who wonders what happened to all the other aardvarks And why ants taste salty And what it would be to be a bird or a fish and what are fish and can they fly. through sunlight and warm rain.” “I think you’re right aardvark is better” said the parsnip who doesn’t dream but if he did would probably dream about pink kangaroos and roots. Roots that just keep growingdeeper, so that they never stop that pass through the heart of all things and then reach sunlight and grow up becoming a tree, taller than the rest, that talks to other trees and not just parsnips and looks down at a parsnip and aardvark conversing and then wonders, does that parsnip dream of being a treeand can that aardvark flyand if not Has he ever tried?

Summer Allotment Party

Pictures by Jonathan O Neill plot51

Family day out

Prize giving party