City Dogs

(from those cold Missoula days)

They sleep on frozen ground,
the city dogs,
and chained to bark-bare trees,
across this fenced-in pavement land,
but they keep howling through
into this world we share.
Mornings when I walk,
bundled from the wind,
I hear them cry with a bark and a whimper
out from the worn yards of dingy snow.
I pass by free in my life,
bitter at the masters
sleeping in warm beds
ignoring what they know
not feeling what they see.
Run free, run free!
I shake my head
And walk into the dawn.

© 2005 KEH