The dog is alone looking, seeing, finding no more than he presumed. Finding the past. Wanting the past to be the future, wanting not hope but satisfaction, the satisfaction of familiar smells, the satisfaction of familiar figures, the satisfaction of familiar selves, the selves around and above him now empty, now filled with sentiment but no faces. An eye, an eye for those above, those somehow himself and not himself more present in their absence than their presence. Is the future the past? – Oh such a poignant question! The poignancy is itself future! Is the future poignant absence of past love? Love of what is below the horizon line. The horizon line is bent uphill; surely that is hope? Hope does not stay. When will hope call him, offering him her red ball, the red bull of the sun setting. Let the sun not set until the future or the past has called him. Where are they? If they are lost, if they have run away or gone on to their other business, where can it be? Where is not the future or the past? Surely they love him there wherever it may be to the side of time. If he bent his head, could he sniff out where they are beside themselves to the right or left of themselves? But oh! If he lowered his nose to the ground, he could miss it if they saw him.
Image “The Dog” – Francisco Goya via Wikimedia Commons
The Cabinet of Heed 