In the Artist’s Way workshop I’m facilitating, we recently finished up “reading deprivation week,” which when that book was written in 1992 was a pretty straightforward task: no books, magazines, newspapers, tv. In 2026 it’s a different story. We experimented with letting go of social media and podcasts and YouTube wanderings and online games. The outcomes were varied, but across the board, we ended up noting where our attention goes and how many things conspire to keep us from the present moment.
Not so for dogs. And in this sonnet by Mark Doty, that may be one of their gifts for us. They only know the now, and they call us back to it over and over.
“...My work:
to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,
my haze-headed friend, you.”
