This poem was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
Walking Woods With Dogs
by Juanita Smart
Birch peels in curls as thin as smoke. Calico bells of gnarly
mountain laurel riot woods with song. The dogs barrel ahead,
raucous in their own thunder. Snout-surf, excavate, rhapsodize
acres of bountiful & decay. The redbuds & magnolia.
Sycamore sheds its camo-colored scarves. Aspen quakes—
a thousand coin-sized hands clapping & clapping.
Growing up we didn’t have a car so we made do with walking.
This is how I make do with loneliness—walking woods with dogs.
When the dogs run off, I let them go. Scuffles of wings, tipped
& bright, scissor blue & spiral. Birdsong sparrows & flutes.
Dense thickets conjure strange faces. The charr-faced man
whose arms are pendulums, softshoes from a fog of flashback.
Time tilts. Plaids of shadow stick in my throat. Fear is how
it feels to swallow God. Swagger of black bear? There—but not there.
Woods bristle with plenty & want. Latched doors inside me swing
open. I step around time, pause beside trout lilies & spring beauties.
Light pontoons. Holy fire of ferns snaps and pops. Bark shinned
pine shapeshifts into bony legs of a white tail doe. Flicker
of stillness as she ghosts across these hungering hills. The dogs
chuff & clatter back, parade slapstick tails & prying snouts.
Panting tongues unzip glistening teeth. Scent of wild shines
in bright eyes. Prodigal bodies galumph through fields of my hands.
Juanita Smart serves as Assistant Poetry editor for River Heron Review. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in About Place Journal, River Heron Review, West Trade Review, Cirque, Northern Appalachia Review, and The Gulf of Maine Field Guide, among others. Her work has twice been nominated for Best of the Net and she won first place in The Fieldguide Poetry Magazine’s inaugural contest for best animal poem. She finds joy in the company of other writers and nature lovers, and drafts her best ideas for poems while exploring local Pennsylvania game lands “off leash” with her galumphing dogs, Eliot and Wilson.
You can purchase The Avenue Journal Issue X: Dogs in paperback at Bookshop.org, or, if you prefer it in digital format, you can download the ebook in .epub format for pay-what-you-can (suggested donation $9) at ko-fi.