MARY. OLIVER

'The popularity of [Dog Songs] feels as inevitable and welcome as a wagging tail upon homecoming' Boston Globe In Dog Songs, Mary Oliver celebrates the special bond between human and dog, as understood through her connection to the dogs who across the years accompanied her on her daily walks, warmed her home and inspired her work. The poems in Dog Songs begin in the small everyday moments familiar to all dog lovers and become, through her extraordinary vision, meditations on the world and our place in it. Dog Songs includes visits with old friends, like Oliver's most beloved dog Percy, and introduces still others in poems of love and laughter, heartbreak and grief. Throughout, the many dogs of Oliver's life merge as fellow travelers and as guides, uniquely able to open our eyes to the lessons of the moment and the joys of nature and connection.

Dog Songs

Riley

Could there be a sweeter arrangement? Over and over

wild with the okayness of  it. Then we walk, then

thinking how grateful I am for the moon’s

it is to love the world. Percy, meanwhile,

my face. As though I were just as wonderful

For he was made small but brave of heart.

For when I went away he would watch for me at

For he suffered before I found him, and never

have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is 

almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old—or 

so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to 

keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.

nikki

It is summer. How many summers does a little dog have?

Oh, to love and to be loved in return by a dog.

Percy, meanwhile, leans agains me and gazes up into my face. As though I were just as wonderful as the perfect moon.

Dog Songs quotes

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