Robin Becker on hospitality

    Xenia is the Greek name for the hospitality between two people from different places. In her poem “Xenia,” Robin Becker expands the hospitality to person and dog:

“Xenia”

Most days that summer your old dog came up,
in the searing heat, with a failing heart,
from your place, the half-mile uphill to mine--

up the steep rise, past the pastured goats, on
the buggy trail that swerves through blueberries.

As you pointed out, The Odyssey
is full of tears, everyone weeping
to find and lose and find each other again.

Spent, he struggled the last two hundred yards,
ears low, chest heaving. Hearing
the jangling of his tags I knew the gods

had chosen me to praise him for his journey,
offer food and water, a place to sleep.

    (Quoted from Slate, September 6, 2011. Thanks to Mike Jablonski for introducing us to “Xenia” and Robin Becker.)
    For a brief biography of Robin Becker, click here. For a poetry book by Robin Becker, Domain of Perfect Affection, click here.
    For a brief video of Robin Becker reading a poem of hers, click here.
    In their lives and their poetry, we sense that Robin Becker and Mary Oliver are in rapport. For Mary Oliver’s poem, “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night (Percy 3),”click here.
    For a bit about Mike Jablonski and CindyJohnson, wonderful animal lovers and animal home providers, click here.