Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Mid-July, just about... how did that happen?
Summer adventures with a grandbaby and grand-toddler have literally taken me out of the news cycles for some welcome child-centered outdoor escapes. With the visiting wee ones this week, we set up a little portable pool in the back yard. (A perfect next activity after trucks in the sandbox, by the way.) I'd ordered the pool with the baby grands in mind, and also, for our Keeshond, Rookie, who just turned two. He loves the water and will immediately stick his whole snout below the surface and blow bubbles - as well as dig and splash. Hence, the small water bowl in our kitchen which I refill a zillion times a day, but I digress.
Our oldest grand-dog, Maggie, is a lab - so water-love is in her genes. She and her just-turned-three-year-old boy have already been splashing in a little plastic pool in their back yard this summer.
Dogs and summer just go together. Here is a poem I found in one of my antique magazines, by a P. C. Fossett. I didn't discover anything about that name online. But this poet knew kids and dogs!
From the August 13, 1892 edition of GOLDEN DAYS....
My Chum, Jack
by P. C. Fossett
I have a chum that sticks by me,
In fair or cloudy weather,
And when from books and tasks I'm free
We're always seen together.
When my playmates give me the shake
I don't sit down and grumble;
I call for Jack, and we two make
A game at rough-and-tumble.
Jack is not now, and never was,
For beauty celebrated.
But "Handsome is as handsome does,"
My copy-book once stated;
And though some folks may criticise
My chum in form and feature,
One look into his honest eyes
Proclaims a faithful creature.
No slave could my commands attend,
Were I a sovereign royal,
As does this staunch and honest friend --
This subject true and loyal;
And when we're rambling wood and field
I fear no hostile stranger,
For Jack would die before he'd yield,
Defending me from danger.
In pond and stream we swim and wade,
Until my anxious mother
Frowns and declares that she's afraid
Some day we'll drown each other.
And when my trowsers' legs are wet,
And Jack's coat saturated,
My father says, when home we get,
"Two vagabonds well mated!"
Now, do you want to see my chum?
Just wait a half a second;
I'll whistle for him, and he'll come
Almost before you've reckoned --
See! here he is with wagging tail
And bark of salutation.
Of all the chums that never fail
A dog beats all creation!
Hard to argue with that.
One of my poetry-art-beautiful-life chums who never fails is our amazingly talented Tabatha, hosting the Roundup this week at The Opposite of Indifference. Thanks, Tabatha!
(Note - I'll be in and out of town this month - and next - so it might be a couple-few weeks between my splashes in the Poetry Friday pool. I hope you are having a lovely summer!)