When Shy Ran Away

​
I was standing on the hill
talking with a woman who had stopped
to say how much she loved
my book.  A runner, young and lithe,
in a lithe group of runners,
 
bouncy, neoprened,
and Shy, who had been nosing
in the brambles on the side of the road,
was frightened, I think.
We’d only had him a week.
 
The woman was pressing
her hands together in an attitude
of prayer, mock-bowing
but sincere, thanking me,
when over her shoulder I saw Shy
 
burst from the brambles
and shoot down the road, flat out,
ears flapping, faster than I thought
a little dog could run.
Could fly:  a small, black streak.
 
What I was wondering
in the hours I ran up and down
the trail and back and forth
on the road, scanning the scrubby
February forest, every fallen
 
branch a Yorkie mix,
was what might be
the nature of the revelation
in a moment like this,
What might it mean?
 
What does it mean
that Shy was waiting for me,
on the front porch,
trembling, bedraggled,
when I finally stumbled home?