City Dog

Weekend at Courtableau Bayou

City dog sits alert, haunches
Resting on the weathered pine pier,
Brown bayou water flowing beneath.
Cypress needles carpet the planks
And decorate her silky, blonde coat.

The wake from a passing boat
Slaps the pilings and stirs the reeds
Along the bank. Splat. Swish.
Ears alert, she tilts her head to
Process the sound as it abates.

Dwarfed by a solitary blue heron
Soaring above tree tops
And two white egrets
Skimming the water’s surface,
She holds her regal pose.

She breathes the wild, ancestral scents
Borne on the bayou’s breeze.
This, she thinks, is where I come from.
This, she knows, is what I am—
Descendant of the noble packs
Who once called this land home.

Kathleen Schrenk, October 2018
Watercolor by Melanie Manuel Vidrine, 2019