By Mai Brehaut
When chance delivers a baby dragon to a hound mother,
everything is turned upside – a taxonomy unlike any another.
How to explain such an odd couple?
Only understanding can remedy such a kerfuffle.
For they are an ecology of opposites,
a fire spiting draco to a docile bellied basset.
The female hound follows her wolf instincts -
to protect her offspring, her duty she must hoodwink.
After repeated attempts, the dragon does not fancy fetch.
Instead, she prefers hours to herself producing a sketch
burned on rock with laser breath, magical landscapes she
yearns to explore.
All kept from mother hound, will she understand what she is
likely to abhor?
Observe the daily rituals, long hours pink licks labor
from thorny crown to rapturous toe, and
sniffsorials on social etiquette – the followers path held
in high favor.
All the while, the dragon daydreams of mountains and
mythical lakes,
away from the clay den that was dug,
crouched over she squeezes - her size reduced to a bug.
At mealtime, proudly the mother hound nuzzles the choicest
of bone
and barks aloud, eat
– it is yours and many more will you own!
In one tiny gulp, the dragon swallows and puffs out smoke.
Perhaps this is being played out - an evolutionary poke.
The dragon curses her iridescent scales, her thundering
tail,
How she loathes her steamy nostrils - all the dross she
entails.
For in her heart, she wishes to soar further.
What of the legends of Arthur and Excalibur?
For the power and mystery of her unworldly wings -
Why can’t she learn like a good hound daughter to bury her
feelings?
Yet even, as she slaps a woeful claw over serpentine brows
Almost blaming, the dragon cannot help but realize this
Acceptance – after
all, she must espouse
for there is nothing more important and gentle as its kiss.
Amidst protesting whines and howls,
mother hound does what she knows best:
safety, a home, the material needs –
Doesn’t that matter? Life’s good deeds?
With courage she glides on, in truth she confesses
to find her own pack, the dragon daughter leaves the nest.
For it is her nature, as it has always been – as old as
science and cosmology,
admire how the Heavens created her morphology –
See the mother hound wag on too, who cares for her as her
own –
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