Copal
The first wolf-dog I rescued was Copal, found at the pound in Santa Fe when I lived on womyn’s land. He was 90% wolf—SO WOLF!—rare in a hybrid, and he loved me more than any dog ever had or would again. In turn, I loved him more than anyone. We lived together for almost 9 years. He was my constant companion, went through 3 years of grad school with me, leash-less and at my side, and he came to every sacred ceremony. He’s still there, in every circle, and visits me on my lucky nights, in dreams.
At ARF Lesbian Land, big puppy Copal
Aug 9, 1997
Wolves mate for life. If a wolf chooses you, that is Tribe until one of you dies. And I cannot imagine digging that grave, making that phone call, the hot needle summoned—
I can imagine opening a door, helping him out—Imagine Mercy beyond temporary splints and drugs and daily disintegration.
I can envision summoning the grace of relinquishment, releasing you from the laws of this place—age, pain, cancer. I can hold onto these thought when I can no longer hold onto you. I can sink heavy through that thick fur of this love, of memories surrendering.
Now, chase the ravens into the heavy sky. Shed your pride or ride it out of your body—your plush gorgeous body, leaving these things—the stones and wind, the moon, snows, and me. All smells swirling, dimming, any limitation gone as one home melts in my weeping heart.
Aug 10
Legs outstretched, he drifts, not wanting water.
No clear communication for days, weeks
this vibration of ending
filling the house
Just 10 more hours of pain and confusion I tell him
That’s not much
9 more hours
We wait.
And I can just sit here, in Glen’s van
ride up to the mountain with a shovel
instead of a dog
today’s about grave-digging,
stoned in the rain
Hitting rocks and hauling them out of a hole
Surrounded in this beautiful meadow by my pals
hole growing deeper
All day in the rain, laughing, sobbing, working hard
Copal was meant to be here with us today
he loves this walk
In his place in the truck lay a shovel
I can just sit here, I think
and things will happen, this will move forward so
why not just recline here and Be In It
Not able to look at the shovel yet
He drifts tonight
8 more hours of this hard breathing
this terrible leave-taking
I’m ready to be done
and him out of that body of atrophied beauty
Flying barking after ravens
and me feeling the ebbing of mercy
gotta hold some for me
Aug 11, at your grave
I can see how people become obsessive about graves
Tending them, making them beautiful
making them be the thing forever lost to you
I’ve walked this forest path everyday
and this one section is now
the sudden utter focus of my day
We buried him with his face painted, a starburst of rainbow colors
His fur, his skin feeling so changed so quickly after
The whole thing happening so quickly, like an abduction
my jagged heart along for the ride, taped up and
thrown in the back in the trunk, silent.
Vet asking if we were ready, take your time
I was like, yeah I’m ready. Joy too
And then the pink barbiturate injection
and in 2 seconds he went limp in my arms
and it thought WAIT! I’m not ready!
I relive that image all day long
There are circus seals and horny toads floating across the sky
The music of creek, the tipi
Fields of lavender monarda, bee orgies inside
Copal is dead now.
Current bushes, mullein flowers, tall cinnamon-bark ponderosas
His bowl on top of all that refitted earth
Inside the earth are
my favorite blankie wrapping him, pictures of free wolves and elk and deer, ten milk bones, a purple stone, a silver spiral, Vox goddesses, sage and cedar, feathers of raven, flicker, pieces of caramelized copal, quartz crystals and turquoise and a poem I wrote for him on yellow legal pages. Also moldavite for accelerated transformation, and his sweet body, eyes open, tongue lolling under the softest blankie, legs bent.
Your plush coat is what I miss the most today. Last sight of you, the fur sticking through dirt. I couldn’t keep my hands off you, my prince, hanging down into the deep hole I wailed as my ancestors did over the open grave, grieving while everyone stopped, waited.
What can I say? I lost my dog? I killed him when his back was turned, bribed him with steak. I dug this grave first and placed him in and now I don’t know where he is. I have lost him. An alternative reality tossed over my head. Joy says that he was gone out of that plush form so quickly, before we even got him out of the yard where he fell into my arms, but I dunno. I’ll never know I tell the fresh rectangle over all that cocoa weight of dirt that’s covered up his coat. Dog bowl full of pink blossoms, a pentacle in small sticks. It was all just a big idea. I pray all the way down the mountain to keep him safe from unseen danger, as he tried all his life to keep me safe. The dragon rolls in with the darkness. Fog takes the valleys. Cold.
Wake crying the first morning without you. I wanna put more food in there! Steak, ice cream, fresh greasy bones. Bury better things. More moldavite! I want a sign that you’re not scared to be in darkness. I am missing you like steak knives in my heart.
Aug 12, at your grave
Maddie’s smaller pawprint from yesterday filled in with the most delicate spiderweb today. The whole of creation strung with tiny silver bead-chains of dew. Water sounds, morning birds, wind. I brought up 4 more greasy bones. Where are you?
When we stopped your pain, the rain stopped. Now this high desert as dried up as my heart feels. You were my partner, my baby, my best friend, my pet piece of the wilder world. I cry into the realms of time and space, dew and spider art and all the unknowable dimensions. Yesterday I called the 5 directions, but how many are there really? Which way did you go when your body went down?
Aug 20, Hiking
I’m caught on the barb of the moment when breath became emptiness, when your heart, obsoleted and absolved from impossible yearning, stopped. My mind circling your dream of running again on four strong legs that awakens you to the huge blue space of sacred law and nothing holds you here any longer. Here with me. Instead, it all opens on crystal hinges and maybe there’s a trumpet or something.
I call out to you in the forest. You who’ve been missing for 11 days, dissolving that Copal-shaped piece of myself, guarded by you for all these crazy, long and easy years. The day drops like a pebble into the silence of your name. Just walk this one dog under the gathering clouds. At the living gates of the aspen grove stand asters, campions and bells, a tribe of white stalks, woven beneath the ground, one family. Re-leafing. Re-turning. Nothing dies.
Glimpses of you like pieces of light between the shuddering trees, gone into the restless wind, the cloud shapes ever re-forming. What is the measure of time and love? How can you be gone when you continue to hold my tender heart wrapped up like a soft and lonely baby inside your plush coat? I know this—that we will remain tribe, my Prince, we will stay on the earth recalling our great adventure for as long as I live.
With Joy’s ceramic wall relief, created the day after Copal died
back to list