“…and he claws at the door to be let out at night…”

Gasch’s Guide to Gargoyles and Other Grotesques says that this bone-clutching critter on the north nave of the National Cathedral is a basenji, an African dog that can’t bark but does tend to yodel. Our neighborhood basenji earned his place in the 1959-1960 gargoyle design competition; his artist, as you’ll see, is already the subject of apocrypha.

EPIPHANY

Bereft of bark, I bat my bone about,
And do my simple service as a spout,
And in my mind I romp across the grass
And nip at skirt-clad ankles as they pass,
And let no lofty insight cloud my brain;
Discernment falls and drips away, like rain.
…but once, a sunny pilgrim made me think:
Her left hand clutched a sketch-pad sopped with ink,
Her right hand led her son—and in my spine,
I knew those hands determined my design.
That sprinkler-misty morning, I awoke
And listened to my maker as she spoke:
“Imagine: When a thousand years have flown,
We’ll look up and see this pup-spout of our own.”
The boy stepped back suspiciously and said,
“I hope by then we’re looking down instead.”