Mary Oliver's Dog Songs

If any dog lover has not yet discovered the poet Mary Oliver's collection called Dog Songs, it is time to read this wonderful creation. Here is one of my favorite poems from Dog Songs:

LUKE

I had a dog
   who loved flowers.
      Briskly she went
         though the fields,

yet paused
   for the honeysuckle
      or the rose,
          her dark head

and her wet nose
   touching
      the face
         of every one

with its petals
   of silk,
      with its fragrance
         rising

into the air
   where the bees,
      their bodies heavy with pollen,

hovered -
   and easily
      she adored
         every blossom,

not in the serious,
   careful way
      that we choose
         this blossom or that blossom -

the way we praise or don't praise -
   the way we love or don't love  -
         but the way

we long to be -
   that happy
      in the heaven of earth -
         that wild, that loving.