QUEENIE

by Genny Haley 2006

A crazy little border collie pup that herded cars

Barking, she’d race out and chase their wheels

Didn’t have the sense to know what’s sheep and what was tires

S’long as she was nippin’ at their heels

Long story short, she missed one day, the score – car 1, dog zero

Vet said amputation’d be the best

Didn’t slow her down none, but instead of superhero,

She decided she’d herd sheep like all the rest.

Trained her to obey commands, by voice, or hand, or whistled,

But in Queenie’s soul an inner fire burned

You put some sheep out in a field, Queenie’s hair just bristled

A’quiver with desire that can’t be learned.

Winter storms would pound the coast, lightning, rain and wind

Sheep, they’d scatter, running in alarm

Queenie’d crouch and circle, comin’ closer, closin’ in

Until huddled, Queenie’d head ‘em to the barn.

Took her to the sheepdog trials in Boonville at the Fair

Apple, wine, wool growers and the rest

Competin’ for blue ribbons, excitement in the air

All displayin’ what they do the best.

Those sheepdogs were in finest form, herders’d trained ‘em good

To get the sheep through gates and chutes and penned

Though Queenie’d gotten on in years she gave it all she could,

Saved her finest hour for the end.

Stands were packed with spectators, everyone was quiet

Then a whisperin’ spread among the crowd

“Lookit that 3-legged dog, damn, ain’t that a riot. . . “

Soon they weren’t laughin’ quite so loud.

Queenie lit out on command, crouched and slowly hopped,

Had ‘em herded through gates 1 and 2

Circled wide and waited – sheep by now had stopped,

Tryin’ to figure out what that damn dog would do.

Queenie gave her “stink-eye” stare to remind them where they stand

“Don’t even think about it,” as she’d creep.

Her every move hypnotic, “You are under my command—

For I am Dog, and you, God knows, are sheep.”

That 3-legged dog got 3 sheep through the chute and in the pen

In record time that ain’t been beat in years

We took blue ribbon, Queenie ‘n me,  got the flock home again--

I still can hear that crowd break out in cheers.

Now Queenie’s dead thirty years and time’s turned many a page,

The sheep are gone -- I’m about used up

But never underestimate the wileyness of age

Or a crazy 3-legged border collie pup.

SSI

SSI

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