Flying High

Nonchalantly bypassing the immutable
bonds of nature keeping its creatures
solidly earthbound the long-legged dog
in an excess of exuberance imagining
himself an eagle, soars into the air,
featherlight, ears streaming behind his
small black muzzle, up, up and away as
though the laws of gravity are there to be
challenged. He leaps like a gazelle
and races like a cheetah, this little
chimera whose sister vainly attempts
to match his grace and nimbleness to
little avail. Both enraptured by their
cold, white environment glittering
under the early winter sun, inciting
them to celebrate their freedom to race
about, to nuzzle the soft-cushioned
forest floor in their celebration of life
as they cavort endlessly, feats of acrobatic
flight and fancy maneuvering them in
a swiftly moving tracery of black hair
flying in the wind, urging wisping curtains 
of snow from overhead boughs to drape 
these fleeting figures of canine bliss.