Listening to the WRITERS ALMANAC with Garrison Keillor, I was treated with this poem by Kate Dicamillo. I really like it because it's touching number one, and secondly, and sorta secretly (from whom I don't know) I would like to have a dog like Aldo that could be a friend. Truth be known, I'm too old and getting too fussy to have to tend to a dog anymore I am sorry to say.


Snow, Aldo

Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees were still
bare and the sky was
gray and low and it began, suddenly,
to snow:
big fat flakes
that twirled and landed on the
black of the man's overcoat and
the black dog's fur. The dog
lifted his face and stared
up at the sky. The man looked
up, too. "Snow, Aldo," he said to the dog,
"snow." And he laughed.
The dog looked
at him and wagged his tail.

If I was in charge of making
snow globes, this is what I would put inside:
the old man in the black overcoat,
the black dog,
two friends with their faces turned up to the sky
as if they were receiving a blessing,
as if they were being blessed together
by something
as simple as snow
in March.