‘…three German Shepherd puppies wandered away from their home up near the County line.’
North County Journal
Serving Northern Santa Cruz County
I have been thinking about this little item that I read in the North County Journal for a couple of months now. It contains the boundaries of a small tragedy. I know we are surrounded by so much blossoming horror in the world (Vietnam, starvation, rioting, living in hopeless fear, etc) that three puppies wandering off isn’t very much, but I worry about it and see this simple event as the possible telescope for a larger agony.
‘…three German Shepherd puppies wandered away from their home up near the County line.’ It sounds like something from a Bob Dylan song.
Perhaps they vanished playing, barking and chasing each other, into the woods where lost they are to this very day, cringing around like scraps of dogs, looking for any small thing to eat, intellectually unable to comprehend what has happened to them because their brains are welded to their stomachs.
Their voices are used now only to cry out in fear and hunger, and all their playing days are over, those days of careless pleasure that led them into the terrible woods.
I fear that these poor lost dogs may be a shadow of a future journey if we don’t watch out.
—Richard Brautigan
March 19, 2009, 6:22pm
