When the owner said, “Blue Heeler,”<\/p>\n
I thought “Blue Healer” because<\/p>\n
I don’t know anything about dogs, and<\/p>\n
I imagined a service animal that sees<\/p>\n
auras and sniffs out sadness<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
which struck me as odd, given all the<\/p>\n
Second Amendment art forms<\/p>\n
scattered around the house, but I thought<\/p>\n
You just never know, do you? and<\/p>\n
decided that the New Age and the<\/p>\n
Confederate Flag could, perhaps in this instance, exist in the same sphere.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But “heal” is actually “heel,”<\/p>\n
as in the lump of muscle at the<\/p>\n
back end of the foot, and<\/p>\n
Blue Heelers do just that —<\/p>\n
nip at the backs of heels to<\/p>\n
make something goes where it’s<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
supposed to go.<\/p>\n
Especially sheep.<\/p>\n
They herd them.<\/p>\n
Keep them in their groups.<\/p>\n
Lead the strays back to the flock.<\/p>\n
Protect the flock from prey.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I feel protected writing this poem.<\/p>\n
This Blue Heeler at my feet.<\/p>\n
And yesterday when you died,<\/p>\n
she never left my side and<\/p>\n
she even put her head on<\/p>\n
my lap when I cried. So<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
perhaps she is a Blue Healer, the<\/p>\n
black and white of her fur<\/p>\n
casting its cobalt glow, her eyes<\/p>\n
taking me in,<\/p>\n
bringing me back<\/p>\n
making me whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the owner said, “Blue Heeler,” I thought “Blue Healer” because I don’t know anything about dogs, and I imagined a service animal that sees auras and sniffs out sadness which struck me as odd, given all the Second Amendment art forms scattered around…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124732,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111999\/revisions\/124732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}