#cave canem

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I am seven years old today and I want the dog by the river, the one with the great mane of hair like my father’s who is a singer at night, and with big ears, too, that grow from the top of its head so that I can tug on them if it’s being bad or stroke them into beanstalks if it’s being good. I see so many dogs on my street lately, most of them reaching only to my ankle and their hind legs ending in furry stumps, and maybe it’s that they all look so sick lying there in puddles in the middle of the street to cool themselves from the heat, but soon these dogs disappear into a van and they don’t come back out. I feel sorry for them, but the kind of dog I want is sturdier, wagging its tongue as much as its tail, its great wet nose always in the air or sniffing the ground for my scent, the fur hanging from the thick middle ruffling in the wind and ruffling in a different way than the fur on those poor little dogs. I am seven years old today, and I can tell now when a dog is well and when it is not, and I want the one that’s well, one that won’t just lie on the ground not moving even when my bike runs over its leg, that will learn the tricks a dog is supposed to learn, like take that foodordrop this money into my handorbite that man.

FRAGMENTVM “The Dog by the River”: wmc

Hodie annos septem nata, peto ad flumen canem, cui est horrida coma sicut patri, cantori nocturno, et longae aures in capite pendentes vel illo male morato vellendae vel bene morato mulcendae. Canes multos exiguis corporibus et membris praecisis nuper vidi; haud scio an hi cum peregrinis excedant et non reveniant cum aestuantes in media via infirmi iaceant in stagnis ut se refrigerent. Cum horum me misereat, canem firmum peto, qui, lingua mota eodem modo quo cauda et umido rostro ad caelum sublato, me odoratur, cuius pellis plus quam ea miserorum crassumque corpus vento flantur. Hodie annos septem nata, novi nunc alium alio esse firmiorem, peto eum qui est firmus, non eos in quos humo iacentes lapides iacio, sed eum a quo petere possum ut illum cibum adimat, has pecunias in manum meam demittat, illum virum mordeat.

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Today, being seven years old, I want the dog near the river, to whom there is mangy hair just like my father’s, a singer by night, and long ears hanging on its head that either must be pulled when it acts poorly or stroked when it acts well. Recently I have seen many dogs with frail bodies and severed limbs; I hardly know whether these ones leave with strangers and don’t return because, sweating, they lie sick in the middle of the road in puddles to cool themselves. Although they sadden me, I want a strong dog, who, with its tongue moving like its tail and its wet nose raised to the sky, smells me, whose coat and thick body is blown by the wind more than that of the wretched ones. Today, being seven years old, I now recognize that one is stronger than the other, I want the one who is strong, not those at whom, lying on the ground, I throw rocks, but him whom I can ask to take that food, drop this money into my hand, bite that man.