Greyhound

Greyhounds are like lightning come to life- flashes of electricity. Watching one run is like watching an angel work, and when they stop and come up to you for attention it's like cuddling a ghost, their silvery grey fur damp with sweat.
They are beauty in dog form, slender, sleek and graceful. I've only met one before, but it made such an impression on me I had to write here.

When I was a kid, my parent's friends had a greyhound. His name was Caesar. Caesar really liked to get out in the open country and chase rabbits. He would chase them and easily run them down. One day we were all out watching Caesar chase rabbits when, all of a sudden, he slowed way down, came loping over to where everyone was, laid down and died. I guess he overdid it.

I met a man on the Greyhound bus. He was a truck driver, for once not driving, but sitting and waiting while someone else brought him where he had to go. He told me about his daughter. He seemed so proud.

Greyhound. »That'll be cash on the barrelhead, Son. This old grey dog is paid to run.« Greyhound is the choice of the thrifty, & of those with time and a dislike of aeroplanes, & of those without pretensions, & of those who wish to interrupt their travel whenever it pleases them.

When we get on the bus in New Haven, the girl in the seat behind us is singing:
»It's a small world after all! Iiiit's a smaaaaal woooorld aaaaafter aaaaall!«
About 60 miles of Interstate 95 later, we're well over an hour and a half into our trip and about a thousand choruses into the song--a thousand identical choruses, that is. By this time the performance has shifted from a traditionally melodic song into a rythmic chant:
»It's ... a small ... world ... af ... ter all!«
Two hours later when we get off the bus in Providence, it goes without saying that we will take the train back and that we will never, ever set foot in a Greyhound bus again.

Let me see the greyhound in the heart...as Roy Clark has seen it...bound up with God and loss and the epic of the self concealing love from itself.