The Heaven of Animals

Eileen aka “CyberCelt’ over at Texas RV Travel lost her dog, Rags, a few days ago.

I know the feeling when you lose an Animal Companion, the grief is real. I dedicate this post to Eileen.

It’s a poem by James Dickey, who always considered himself first and foremost a poet but is best known for his nightmarish 1970 novel Deliverance, made into a popular film. It’s a little long for the usual size of my entries so you will have to click on the post title to see all of it.

The Heaven of Animals
By James L. Dickey

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey

May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.

James Dickey, “The Heaven of Animals” from The Whole Motion: Collected Poems 1945-1992. Copyright © 1992 by James Dickey

Spare a shilling for a glass of sweet sherry

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