Guest Poem by Leonard Lambert

Leonard Lambert is the author of seven collections of verse spanning almost as many decades. A recent highlight was a short-listing in the 2020 Bridport Prize. His Selected Poems, Somewhere in August, (Steele Roberts) appeared in 2016, and his most recent publication is a chapbook, Winter Waves, (Cold Hub Press, 2018).

Dog Heaven

….these beings wholly dependent on us
whom we have helped lift themselves to gain
a soul, but for which there is no heaven…
(Letters, Rainer Maria Rilke)

Rilke was wrong:
…..dogs have their own Heaven,
no soul required.
As if Devotion were the domain
of lesser angels,
down into Earth
and a dream without end
go the dogs.
Master, or Mistress, is there
with stick or ball
or called command,
and old bones regather
and the dogs are running again
……………..running forever.