It’s just above zero. And there was a light dusting of snow this morning. I’m out back with Murph. The sun rises yellow and pink and the confectioner’s snow on the ground shimmers in the lovely shine.

There’s a puppy of about nine weeks named Berkeley. The puppy is kept on his leash. But Murph, ever the antagonist, steps up to the puppy, slow deliberate stalker step after step. Strangers never really know what to make of Murph, I imagine. She always looks like she’s stalking. And where it isn’t, it looks altogether malicious. The pup pulls at his leash and snaps up and down. I ask the pup’s pet, that is, his human tether at the end of his leash, if she minds if Murph is off her leash. She doesn’t mind. Murph meanwhile runs circles around the woman just out of reach of the hapless pup. Murphy really is a tease.

And so it goes that neither Murph nor the distracted Berkeley go. But how could I interrupt? They leap at each other. And nip pleasantly at each other. And Murph offers her catechism in sticking your nose into the snow, under the snow, and popping up raising glittering arcs of the white stuff and the puppy follows.

I have to catch Murph at last, and leash her, and walk away; or she might never do her business. The only time I ever ask, “Are you finished? Are you finished?” is when I know that she is not. But she knows the question and she knows what it means and it makes her body urgent. And I might stay out all morning and watch last night’s fragile snow cover sneak away except that I haven’t accomplished yet my coffee so we head back inside.

SS