Just watching a dog or a cat can be a deeply healing experience. It takes us out of our mind and brings us into the now — the only place free of chains of the past and unknown void of the future. That’s where an animal lives all the time, surrendered to life, enjoying it with every fiber of its being.

When you pet a dog, your thinking subsides for a moment… that is until you realize that it has chewed your favorite book! This is what Mary Oliver (September 10, 1935–January 17, 2019) explores in her tender poem “Percy” included in the collection Dog Songs. Read here by the poet herself and steeped in boundless love for her favorite pet. Please enjoy!

PERCY
from Dog Songs by Mary Oliver

Our new dog, named for the beloved poet,
Ate a book which unfortunately we had
Left unguarded.
Fortunately it was the Bhagavad Gita,
Of which many copies are available.
Every day now, as Percy grows
Into the beauty of his life, we touch
His wild, curly head and say,
“Oh, wisest of little dogs.”

FOR I WILL CONSIDER MY DOG PERCY
from Dog Songs by Mary Oliver

For I will consider my dog Percy.

For he was made small but brave of heart.

For if he met another dog he would kiss her in kindness.

For when he slept he snored only a little.

For he could be silly and noble in the same moment.

For when he spoke he remembered the trumpet and when
       he scratched he struck the floor like a drum.

For he ate only the finest food and drank only the
       purest of water, yet would nibble of the dead fish also.

For he came to me impaired and therefore certain of
       short life, yet thoroughly rejoiced in each day.

For he took his medicines without argument.

For he played easily with the neighborhood’s bull
       mastiff.

For when he came upon mud he splashed through it.

For he was an instrument for the children to learn
       benevolence upon.

For he listened to poems as well as love-talk.

For when he sniffed it was as if he were being
       pleased by every part of the world.

For when he sickened he rallied as many times as
       he could.

For he was a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For we humans can seek self-destruction in ways
       he never dreamed of.

For he took actions both cunning and reckless, yet
       refused always to offer himself to be admonished.

For his sadness though without words was
       understandable.

For there was nothing sweeter than his peace
       when at rest.

For there was nothing brisker than his life when
       in motion.

For he was of the tribe of Wolf.

For when I went away he would watch for me at
       the window.

For he loved me.

For he suffered before I found him, and never
       forgot it.

For he loved Anne.

For when he lay down to enter sleep he did not argue
       about whether or not God made him.

For he could fling himself upside down and laugh
       a true laugh.

For he loved his friend Ricky.

For he would dig holes in the sand and then let
       Ricky lie in them.

For I often see his shape in the clouds and this is a
       continual blessing.

THE FIRST TIME PERCY CAME BACK
from Dog Songs by Mary Oliver

The first time Percy came back
he was not sailing on a cloud.
He was loping along the sand as though
he had come a great way.
“Percy,” I cried out, and reached to him—
                those white curls—
but he was unreachable. As music
is present yet you can’t touch it.
“Yes, it’s all different,” he said.
“You’re going to be very surprised.”
But I wasn’t thinking of that. I only
wanted to hold him. “Listen,” he said,
“I miss that too.
And now you’ll be telling stories
                of my coming back
and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,
but they’ll be real.”
And then, as he used to, he said, “Let’s go!”
And we walked down the beach together.

Do you have a dog or plan to have one? Then you absolutely need Dog Songs in your life! Complement with Billy Collins’ warmhearted ode to our little furry friends titled “Dharma.”

Humor, wit, and sheer elegance are the most distinguishing features of Billy Collins’ poetry. As America’s two-term Poet Laureate and a wordsmith of immense talent and unique voice, he introduced countless people to the art of verse through his books and numerous teaching workshops.

Every poem that comes under his pen shows us that good poetry doesn’t have to be difficult or obscure — a rule evident in his deeply empathetic “Dharma” included in the collection Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. Read here by Billy Collins himself and masterfully animated by Sophia Li, this uncommonly soulful meditation celebrates our four-legged companions and their intrinsic ability to give meaning to our lives. Please enjoy.

DHARMA
by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance —
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

Sailing Alone Around the Room is a must read for the lovers of poetry.

Human civilization is an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our own mortality Ernest Becker argued in his Pulitzer-winning book. But unlike our denial of death, our consciousness of death is a powerful life-affirming force that can help us change the way we live — and die — argues Yoel Hoffmann in his captivating volume Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death. Please savor this selection of exquisite short poetry composed by Zen monks moments before they passed away.

At a young age of thirty one, Zen monk Bassui Tokusho heard the running of water in a brook and was enlightened. Being a recluse, he spent most of his days in a hut in the mountains, and whenever visitors came to hear his teaching, he would flee. But despite his love of solitude, Bassui was known as a monk who didn’t turn away from simple people and taught them Zen in a way they could understand. When the time came for him to pass away, he turned to the gathered crowd, uttered the death poem below, and died.

BASSUI TOKUSHO 抜隊得勝
Died 1387 at the age of sixty-one

Look straight ahead.
What’s there?
If you see it as it is
You will never err.

Sensing that his final hour was near, Zen monk Kozan Ikkyo called his pupils to gather around him. What followed were his instructions to bury him without any ceremony and without any services in his memory. On the morning of his death he wrote the poem below, laid down his brush, and passed away.

KOZAN IKKYO 固山ー鞏
Died 1360 at the age of seventy-seven

Empty-handed I entered the world
Barefoot I leave it.
My coming, my going —
Two simple happenings
That got entangled.

Feeling the inevitable, Zen monk Goku Kyonen gathered his disciples, tapped the floor with his stick one time, and said the death poem below. Once finished he tapped the floor with his stick one more time and shouted, “See! See!” Then, sitting upright, he died.

GOKU KYONEN 悟空敬念
Died 1272 at the age of fifty-six

The truth embodied in the Buddhas
Of the future, present, past;
The teaching we received from the
Fathers of our faith
Can all be found at the tip of my stick.

Japanese Death Poems is a kind of read that stays with us for life — and death.

“I knew my woods and my fields; I knew every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths. I wandered those woods even in my dreams,” writes Richard Louv in the opening chapter of his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. “A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest — but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move.”

It is disheartening that we live at a time when the young spend less and less of their leisure time in nature. Their senses narrow down, both in their bodies and their minds, reducing their capacity for the true unmediated joy of reconnecting with the source of life. It is indeed a symptom of a nature-deficit disorder, a term Richard Louv coined to describe the dear price we pay for our alienation from Mother Earth.

But what happens if we teach our kids to go out in nature? What happens if we nourish the inborn sense of awe in the mysteries of the living world all around us? The answer can be gleaned from a story a ninth-grader told Richard Louv about his trip to the forest where he found The Spot, as he called it, and a subsequent inexplicable spiritual moment of amazement:

As long as I can remember, every time I heard the word “nature” I thought of a forest surrounded by mountain peaks seen off in the distance. I never thought too much of this until one year when I was on a family vacation at Mammoth Mountain. I decided I would try and find a place that was similar to the place I have thought about since I was a kid. So I told my parents I was going to go on a walk. I grabbed my coat and I left.

To my surprise, it only took about five or ten minutes to find The Spot. I stood there in awe; it was exactly how I imagined it. Dozens of massive pine trees were visible. Maybe one hundred feet from where I stood, snow lightly covered the ground; pine needles were scattered about. Out in the distance above the trees was a breath-taking view of the mountaintop. To my side was a small creek. The only sound I could hear was the trickling of the water (and the occasional car on the highway not too far behind me). I was in a star-struck daze for what seemed to be five or ten minutes, but that turned out to be two and half hours.

My parents had been looking for me because it was getting dark. When we finally met up, I told them I had gotten lost, for how could I share such an experience, such an overwhelming religious experience? This episode really made me think about the real meaning of nature. I have come to the conclusion that one’s idea of nature is also their idea of a paradise or a heaven on earth. In my case, I felt perfect when I was at The Spot.

Complement this particular portion of the Last Child in the Woods, an enlightening read in its totality, with philosopher and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau on why he went to live in the woods, and then revisit Deborah Underwood and Cindy Derby’s watercolor meditation on our inseparable link to nature.