A Zen master.

Another troubled night. Nearly four . Wilf is finally, finally, asleep in the library. His head resting on my right slipper. On the library table a pile of newly delivered books. Angus picks up a tome of modern American poetry . The sort of thing he wouldn't usually read. Mark Doty. Never heard of him . The dust cover tells me he teaches at Rutgers. I skim through it expecting to be unimpressed . A sonnet . Not a style you find very often . A tale about a dog . I read it three times. Genius. A man who understands that dogs live for the moment . Past, future, worries ; alien concepts to them . Here it is. It made me chuckle with delight.

Golden Retrievals

Fetch ? Balls and sticks capture my attention
seconds at a time. Catch ? I don't think so.
Bunny , tumbling leaf , a squirrel who's -- oh
joy -- actually scared. Sniff the wind , then

I'm off again : muck , pond, ditch, residue
of any thrillingly dead thing. And you ?
Either you're sunk in the past , half our walk,
thinking of what you can never bring back,

or else you're off in some fog concerning
-- tomorrow , is that what you call it ? My work :
to unsnare time's warp ( and woof ! ), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you. This shining bark,

a Zen master's bronzy gong, calls you here,
entirely, now : bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.