A Fable for Dogland

12/25-26/17

A Fable for Dogland

‘Twas the day after Christmas,

and all through the land

people were coughing and crying,

as loud as a band!

     

Evie sat on the beach, but the ocean was still,

not a wave coming in, not little,

not big.  Her sister beside her

began to cry—her face smudged and dirty,

the air hard to breathe. 

The sky was dark and no one was on the beach.

 Evie looked around and spied her friend,

her friend there on the lonely beach,

Lucy the Laughing Sea Lion,

who rolled in the sand and looked very sad,

not laughing, not laughing at all.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Evie asked.

“What’s wrong with the beach? 

What’s wrong with the sky?  Why is it lonely?

Why does everyone cough and cry?”

And Lucy said, “Yes, I can tell you what’s wrong.

A business guy named Ronald Rump,

who isn’t very nice, he wants to run the world

and own every store, and always have the last say,

so he put up a wall, to keep others away.

A wall of rock and brick, wire and stone,

and then on top, he added a big glass dome!

A dome so, so big, it closed out the sky.

Now even the stars are out of sight!

So all around the country, no breezes, no waves,

no planes, no birds, no salmon in the streams.”

Lucy shook her head and cried, “And here,

on our pretty beach, there are no waves,

no waves, no waves at all!”

   

Then Lucy shook her head and a tear

rolled down her furry cheek.  She said,

“But even worse, worst of all, on Christmas Eve,

even Santa was stopped by this big wall!

He wasn’t stopped by snow nor rain,

nor sleet nor darkest cold and windy night.

No, not even his reindeer, not a one,

could crack through that wall!

So instead of dolls and books and peppermint candy,

red sweaters and toys and nice warm socks,

everyone got just a lump of coal,

no songs, no cookies, no presents at all.

  

“And now everyone is burning their coal

and the air is thick and dark,

not from storm nor clouds, not Seattle fog,

no, not even an eclipse,

but deepest…darkest…awful…Smog!”

      

Even Evie was about to cry, but then

her dog friend Domino ran up and barked and jumped

and did a flip, licked Evie’s face and said,

“Can’t you hear the howls and barks?  Can’t you hear

the call?  The dogs in Oregon and Idaho,

the wolves in Wyoming, the coyotes in Kansas,

across mountains and plains, through cities and towns,

and deep…dark…woods, full of scary things!

The dogs in Denver and Kansas City,

in Sedalia, Boonville and Columbia,  

barking all the way across the continent,

to say, “come back, Evie, come back to Dogland,

we need to see you soon!”

 

 So Evie took her sister by the hand,

and they followed Domino a long, long way,

past fields of yellow grass, and desert sand,

where rattlesnakes said hello, and rattled and danced

like a mariachi band.  
  

Evie ran and ran, with Alice riding Domino,

they ran up mountains,
coooooold, so cold, shiiiiiivering cold,

brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……

Then hot, hooooooot, panting, huhh, huhh, huhh,

like her daddy running a marathon.

And then they reached the Missouri River,

and Evie found her friend,

Roger the River Otter,

and he found sticks and string and logs,

he made them a raft to float and float

a thoooooousand miles, while he paddled

their little boat, paddled

past tiny towns and family farms.

 

They paddled under bridges, past barges,

they saw trains and buffalo and eagles,

herons and prairie dogs, but the air

was still so thick and bad, that

they saw sad butterflies that couldn’t fly!  

  

At last, they saw the Big Burr Oak

that towered to the sky, 

                                   so they landed
at Katfish Katie’s, jumped off their raft,

Evie and Alice and Domino,

with Roger the River Otter, who shouted out,

“no time for a snack.”

So they ran up the trail, over creeks, past bikes

and big, big rocks, through fields and forests, 

until they got to Dogland,

where the sky was blue and clear. 

“Whew!” said Domino, rolling in the grass.

“That was a long, long walk!”

Then Evie talked to Hector and Cybele and Dorothy,

the dogs who live in Dogland.

She asked “Why is the sky here still blue?”

Hector scratched his ear and told her,

“It’s no big secret.  There’s no coal here,

no smoke, no dust, no deep, dark smog.” 

And Evie looked around and said,

“I have a plan.”  She whispered it to Hector,

to Cybele, Dorothy and Domino,

and they barked and barked, so the dogs

way down the road could hear.  And they barked

and barked, until far away, even

Lucy the Laughing Sea Lion knew the plan,

and knew that she could laugh again.

Ho-ho-ho!  And ho-ho! again.

Then Lucy called all the whales and dolphins,

called the sharks and minnows and salmon,

called sea horses and sea urchins,

and even called an orange octopus so big

it could stretch from Washington

to the Hawaiian Islands,

and all of them pushed and pulled,

until the walls caved in and the waves

rushed back onto the beaches.

 

 And Evie climbed a tree and called all the birds

that she could see, the robins and the owls,

the blue jays, hawks and sparrows,

the condors, cardinals, and canaries,

the pelicans and gulls and all their friends,

even a frosty albatross!

And all together, they beat their wings

and flew fast and faster, round and round,

until a giant whirlwind took all the smog away.
 

Then Domino and Dorothy

called the dogs and bears and buffalo,

all the cats and bats and rats and hares,

all the skunks, raccoons, and river otters,

all the squirrels and grumpy baboons,

the moose and mice, the deer and mountain lions,

and together they gathered all the coal

and made a giant mountain in big flat Kansas.

  

But no one liked that mountain made of coal,

so everyone brought dirt and shovels,

and rakes and seeds, and planted

daisies and roses, white, red and blue,

and violets and cedars, and apple trees, too,

and right on top, a huge, huge bright yellow bloom

opened up, a sunflower that grew and grew!

  

Then Evie pointed up at the clean blue sky,

and the bright, bright sun, and said,

“No more coal, no more oil.  From now on,

we’ll use the power from the sun!”

       

The dogs in Dogland, and the people, too,

all barked and howled and cheered,

and Domino shook her paw.

Cybele gave Evie her favorite bone, 

        

and others gave her a double,

no, triple, even bigger! ice cream cone!

   

Then Hector stepped up, and gave Evie

a glittery crown, and said, “thanks to you,

we’ll keep our skies clean and blue,

all because of you, our pretty princess.

That’s what we’ll call you now,  

our pretty Princess Evelyn Sunstone!”