Welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Thursday, September 21st, 2003.

Today's poem is by Pablo Neruda, and it's called A Dog Has Died.

I'll read it once, offer a few comments, then read it one more time.

A Dog Has Died. I'll read it once, offer a few comments, then read it one more time. A dog has died.

My dog has died.

I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine.

Someday I'll join him right there.

But now he's gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners,

and his cold nose.

And I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky or any human being,

I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.

Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom, where my dog waits for my

arrival, waving his fan-like tale in friendship. I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,

of having lost a companion who was never servile. His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine, withholding its

authority, was the friendship of a star, aloof, with no more intimacy than was called for, with no

exaggerations. He never climbed all over my clothes, filling me full of his hair or his mange. He never rubbed up against my knee like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need.

The attention required to make a vain person like me understand that being a dog,

he was wasting time, but with those eyes so much

purer than mine, he'd keep on gazing at me with a look that reserved for me alone, all his sweet

and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me, and asking nothing. I, how many times have I envied his tail as we walked together on the

...