Happy as a Dog's Tail

HAPPY AS A DOG'S TAIL

by Anna Swir from Talking to My Body (Copper Canyon Press)

[translated by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan]

Happy as something unimportant   

and free as a thing unimportant.   

As something no one prizes

and which does not prize itself.   

As something mocked by all

and which mocks at their mockery.   

As laughter without serious reason.   

As a yell able to out yell itself.   

Happy as no matter what,

as any no matter what.

Happy

as a dog’s tail.

Allegory, metaphor, simile . . . these have been on my mind since Saturday morning when I watched a bit of the conversation between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell that my local PBS station was playing for pledge week.  Although I've seen bits and pieces of the program before, what struck me this time was when Joseph Campbell remarked that we need to read and understand the stories of our faith (for the Abrahamic traditions specifically) as poetry not prose, looking to the metaphor rather than to a literal interpretation of the narrative. 

When I was doing research for my doctoral dissertation I came across a school of thought I hadn't encountered in my almost decade of theological education, theopoetics.  Theopoetics asserts, like Campbell, that we need to speak of the Holy in metaphor and simile, attempting to understand our lived experience of God with the language of poetry. 

It's probably obvious that this resonates with me.  If it didn't, I'd be having an extra cup of tea each morning rather than blogging about poetry.  I realize, however, that there are some people who need to ease into metaphor like breaking in a pair of new shoes (that was a simile by the way, not a metaphor), so the question for this morning is a simple exercise in simile . . .

Fill in the blank:

I'm as _______ as ____________.

I'd love to hear your answers!