Saturday, January 12, 2013

O Puppy, My Puppy

When we occupied Camp Borepatch, I installed a moat to enhance the defenses.  A moat cunningly disguised as a pond with a waterfall:


Basically, we modified the local environment, making Camp Borepatch an attractive home for things that like to live in water.  Then I got a puppy.  Wolfgang does not like to live in water, but is exceedingly interested in creatures that do.

Exceedingly. And so what did my horrified gaze reveal?


That black ragged blanket you see in the foreground is the plastic pond liner, fished out of the drink by a nearly 100 pound still "teenage" puppy in pursuit of some inoffensive aquatic creature.  Oh, bother.  And so with apologies to Walt Whitman, a funeral poem for the pond:
O PUPPY! my Puppy! our fearful dig is done;
The spine has weather'd every ache, the prize we sought is won;
The pond is near, the falls I hear, the Missus all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady stream, the water cool and sparkling:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the ragged shreds of mat,
Where in the yard my fountain lies,
An empty dried up vat.


O Puppy! my Puppy! your muddy soaking paws;
Tell your tale -- you battled long and vanquished with your jaws;
For you cascades and gentle streams had no fascination;
Building feats with water flowing just by gravitation;
Here Puppy! dear Puppy!
This hole beneath my feet;
It is some dream that now the yard,
Is sudden uncomplete.


My Puppy does not answer, his tail 'twixt legs is hid;
My pond does not hold water, not like it one time did;
The critter Wolfie dug out fled, its home is closed and done;
From fearful pup, the digging up, the liner fairly won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the yard my Puppy guards,
The pond is cold and dead.
Please no comments from poetry purists that this is just doggerel.

10 comments:

Home on the Range said...

Whelp, it was fun while it lasted.

Thank you for the biggest smile I've had all week, not for the mess, but for your brilliance. My best to you and Mrs. Bl and your new teenager.

Mr. Engineering Johnson said...

So the poor aquatic creatures in the mote have gone to sleep with the fishes?

Borepatch said...

EJ, LOL

Ratus said...

I think it's pining for the fjords, EJ.

Six said...

Aach. Barbarians at the moat!

Murphy's Law said...

Most excellent. And they say that dogs help us reduce the stress in our lives.

Mrs. S. said...

Maybe you should have named him Digger. Thanks for the laugh; it was greatly needed.

MSgt B said...

Win!

Old Walt is spinning in his grave.

Loved it!

kx59 said...

nice bomb crater there.
The BAR corp. HQ used to have landscaping in back till the blue healer got hold of it.
I feel your pain.

Borepatch said...

Mrs. S, LOL. That's awesome.

I have to say that I had a lot of fun writing this.