Overland to the Islands – Denise Levertov

Let’s go — much as that dog goes,
intently haphazard.  The
Mexican light on a day that
“smells like autumn in Connecticut”
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur — and that too
is as one would desire — a radiance
consorting with the dance.
Under his feet
rock and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions — dancing
edgeways, there’s nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction — “every step an arrival.”

*arrivearrivearrive*

Eugene Peterson talks briefly on this poem and his vocation:

"She has a wonderful line in there about her dog going intently, haphazard from fire hydrant to bush to tree," Peterson says. "He knows where he's going. He couldn't articulate to you, but he knows he's got a nose for what he wants to do.

"When I read those lines, I though that's what I've been doing all my life. I never knew where I was headed and at some point I realized it was pastor."