The Dog
The Dog
Your life is mine —
the shadow calls.
Wet panic of the flight through foam.
The swell will be your soundless home;
a trough to offer death and calm.
Come down and sleep —
beneath the wave,
membrane of the wailing deep.
Let drop your failing limbs and breathe,
to rest in dust and silent cave.
Lie now and dream —
among these bones,
of all that you have left above;
the voices that your heart has loved,
that cry your name through time unknown.
Defy the end, embrace the cry,
black wonder of the yellow morn.
Cast your eyes into the storm,
and climb to light —
and climb to sky.
— Thomas LaVoy
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The Dog was created in collaboration with British composer Phillip A. Cooke for his work The Shadow Calls, commissioned by the Swedish male voice choir Svanholm Singers in 2022. Exploring the theme of mental health, as requested by the commissioning ensemble, this poem imagines a broader emotional context for Spanish painter Francisco Goya's celebrated painting The Dog. Painted directly onto the walls of his home between 1819 and 1823, The Dog is one of 14 paintings in Goya's so-called Black Paintings. Though the prevailing interpretation of this painting is one of abandonment and/or oppression, I do not see the painting in that light. I do not see a hopeless, dying dog, but one whose gaze is elevated in consideration of the dark wave ahead. It continues to hold its head above water, to fight for survival in the face of a looming shadow.
Goya’s The Dog, from the Black Paintings.