On Dogs and Walking. Two Prize Winning Poems by Sue Blott

Parallel Tracks

Solitary walks
by railways tracks
keep me close
to my father who,
solitary, walks
in open fields
and schoolyards.

Rascal

October: our anniversary month.
To celebrate our bond of dog and human,
we’ve gone with the wind
on a walk together
towards a gold-cloaked mountain.
As a nameless soul
from Animal Control,
a newspaper ad dubbed you
‘A Perfect Gentleman.’
More appropriately,
I could have named you
Shadow, Sweep or Blackie,
but I saw a glint in your eyes
of a reckless spirit
and the tilt of your chin
reminded me
of defiance, Rhett-Butler-style.
So, I called you
Rascal.