Ode to Looby

The following is a poem written as part of a workshop lesson taught by one of my excellent teachers. She asked us to push our comfort levels and explore using poetry in ways that would not feel forced and would in fact allow students to see how poetry is truly integrated into our educational studies.

For the assignment, we were given few parameters. She simply said "Use love and friendship as your inspiration."  What came out for me was a short poem about my old basset hound.  Named after a local martini bar/restaurant with exotic menu options, Clyde is a friendly old man whose eyesight and hearing are failing him.  He has a special diet and takes 10 pills per day. He rarely bounds around the way he once did, and his walks are now shorter because he gets tired quickly. He keeps asking for Salisbury steak and decaf coffee, but to this point, I've declined that request. He has two little lunatics who have come into his life and made it crazy, but he has always been gentle with them and treated them as something between quiet indifference and mild amusement. In his life, he has lived in a vibrant city, main street of a small town, and now he's moved out to the burbs with quiet, tree-lined streets.

This poem is for him.

Ode to Looby:

floppy ears for smelling

martinis chilled

venison steaks and ostrich 3 ways

mayor of a small town

always looked down upon

never condescended

smell the baby

knows to be gentle

wouldn't lick ketchup off his face

floppy ears now smelly

can't get down stairs

the up is too difficult

(Image credit: Debi LeBrun)