“What the World Needs Now . . .”1
His friend, shepherd of a motley flock,
City Light Community Ministries,
delights in grinning and calling him the “Poet.”
He just laughs and says he couldn’t
rhyme his way through the labyrinth
of a villanelle. Consider his remaindered
books boxed in the closet of misguided
aspirations. It doesn’t matter.
They were all acts of love, experiences
retraced as if lived in the joy-filled whorl
of his Black-Tri Aussi Shepherd
nipping on instinct the pants’ leg,
the hand of the Poet rambled off again
to be found by this good-angel dog,
her calling to lead home lost sheep
in the gentleness of wisdom, soothed
by the oil of gladness.2
So he has taken to reading Apocryphal books,3
those outside the acknowledged canon,
Quest Stories of clear-cut good and evil,
easy to choose, always knowing the outcome:
the good father, blind Tobit; his devoted son
Tobias; God’s angel Raphael; and “the dog,”
setting out to restore Tobit’s sight, rescue
the lovely Sarah from Asmodeus,
worst of demons, and confirm
the union of Tobias and Sarah.
Of course it’s the dog who shepherds
their Happily Ever After.
The demon doesn’t stand a chance.
NOTES:
1 “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” 1965 song first made famous by singer Jackie DeShannon and recorded and performed by Dionne Warwick in 1966. Composer Burt Bacharach (music); Hal David (lyrics).
2James 3:13; Hebrews 1:9, The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard Edition, New York: Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., 1989.
3The Book of TOBIT, The New Jerusalem Bible: Standard Edition, New York: Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., 1989, pp. 476-488.
