ENTREZ/ TENGA BUEN DIA

Cold spell the week before Thanksgiving and Hannukah

(which won’t happen for another 80,000 years
I learn this morning still under covers -- radio)

This the second day of it. Two Jehovah Witnesses ignore “Entrez” (where did that come from?) but give me literature and wishes for a good day, in Spanish, then hurry on to witness elsewhere.

Outside neighbor’s back door their dog the color of their house but with bright orange collar sits waiting in the hope it will open. Entrez in dog would do him well, do him up brown, as the old expression went; but they’re away to work. The door will not open. He seems to come to accept this, walks down the deck steps, but soon forgets and goes again to sit at door, as if he cannot think of anything else to do. (It is colder than the thermometer, which of course he cannot read, tells.)

Yesterday the first day of it. I, like him, was locked out and in only my stocking feet, the cold with light rain coming. I managed to break in to the garage, get into my car, drive to some good woman’s house to be given poached eggs (from her backyard chickens) and the wherewithal (what a wonderful word) to make it through the day until neighbors (these with the brown house and brown orange-collared dog) could let me have the key they keep to this house where I’m staying by the grace of its owners.

I thought long for the animals all around who have nothing but their coats when the cold comes. I hoped to keep that awareness for them, even if I cannot bring them in, as I was brought in. I am thankful for this second day to be inside, to be mindful for the animals outside, especially now the neighbors’ dog who’s the color of their house but with a bright orange collar. This ends with me taking an old quilt over to offer the dog some cover

but first I ring the doorbell to soon learn it is not as I thought. The mother is home; the dog, inside, now, at her heels, is a she. I return the key. I bring the old quilt back with me.

May every creature fare as well in this cold spell
as we, the dog with orange collar and I,
this week before Thanksgiving and Hannukah
(coming, wondrously, together.)