Author's Note:  To require a poet--or a painter, composer, sculptor--to submit a "My Best  . . . "  is something a satirist might enjoy, or say his cousin, the sadist.  Is it ever the case that the originator of a poem determines what is best? Best of what?  Form, idea, passion?  I cannot choose a best poem anymore than I could choose a favorite poem.  And no, not because the others might be jealous, but because that is not the poet's role at all.  Others decide what, if anything, might be better than X or 'Best' of ___________.  So I've submitted a poem with the qualification that, if it does not have a 'best' subject, then it has a favorite subject, the best of my best friends.

                                                MY LIFE IS MEASURED
                                                                  
 
                                           By my companions,                           
                                                 by Brownie, the Irish setter
                                                 who gloried in chasing the birds
                                                 of the field, who learned to open
                                                 the backyard gate, to go downtown
                                                 so he could dog around, and later
                                                 when crippled by a car, endured
                                                 the pain so stoically it would have
                                                 impressed the gods of Sparta . . .
 
                                             By Walter, the Old English Sheep Dog
                                                  who herded party guests
                                                  into the kitchen, one by one
                                                  where they would be contained
                                                  as though they too were sheep
                                                  to be gathered together safe from harm,
                                                  and if one stepped forth to leave
                                                  he would block their way like a chess piece,
                                                  so devoted was he to duty . . .
 
                                           By Cynthia, the Springer
                                                   who followed later, and one evening
                                                   after dinner when the family went out
                                                   to the theater, she nosed open the trash,
                                                   pawed out three chicken leg-bones
                                                   and for hours gnawed them down so fine
                                                   she digested every bit, and the next morning
                                                   was eating fallen figs from the ground
                                                   and in general, lived a life without regret . . .
 
                                           By Irish, the Grand Terrier
                                                   who was the Muse of Solitude,
                                                   sleeping under my desk
                                                   as if she had no other rest,
                                                   who never grieved over what was lost,
                                                   feared no thing, and did not know jealousy,
                                                   or ever worried—or worried that I knew--
                                                   over anything, not past injustices, or what
                                                   might come, and kept her happiness to the last . . .
                                                 
                                             My life is measured by the company I keep,
                                                   by those I most admire, who surpass me                                                                                   in their magnanimity.