The Dog as Healer, the Snake as Cure
by Jeffery Beam
And there are records of many cures
effected by the healing tongues of both
dogs & serpents during the incubation
of those who came praying for healing.
Maria Leach, God Had a Dog
Fear nothing, no matter
what. In your sleep, that perilous
place, will come
dogs & serpents licking
with their tongues.
Ointments will be spread,
foul odors & sharp pain
diminished. Wounds healed
miraculously. Sorrows erased.
The narrow hairy face
of man’s best friend, your
four-legged mentor, will
embrace you. The serpent
in your belly will laugh.
Fear nothing, no matter
what. It has been
this way
forever.
And will be
again.
Jeffery Beam (website) is the author of numerous award-winning books of poetry including An Invocation, The Beautiful Tendons: Uncollected Queer Poems 1969 – 2007, Visions of Dame Kind, An Elizabethan Bestiary: Retold, The Fountain , and the spoken word CD with multimedia, What We Have Lost: New and Selected Poems 1977-2001. The song cycle, Life of the Bee, with composer Lee Hoiby, continues to be performed on the international stage, and can be heard on Albany Record’s New Growth. Beam is poetry editor of the print and online literary journal Oyster Boy Review and a botanical librarian in the Biology-Chemistry Library at UNC-Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Enjoyed this, especially the image of tongues both within and out.
*sinks fingers into scruff of own fuzzy four-legged tongue-bath provider*
Hello there, Jeffery!
Is this a one-off or do you have more clever new poems about doggy folklore and eternal doggie-dom? I see the Leach quote is from a big fat academic tome of 1961, and I bet it’s full of enticing little facts.
What a great reading, I felt tremors through my gut. Love the implications about healing, whether for dog or human.
Mysterious. I really love this! And as an animal person, it vindicates my preference for critters.