Silence

　　I lifted the door lever and went outside to stand in the quiet. Then I leaped through the deep snow, through the woods, around the pond, and out to the road where Flora and Nickel's car had been. I stood looking down the road. The quiet was almost as loud as the noise of the wind.

　　The snow was high. No one had plowed. It was the longest stretch of white I'd ever seen——up and down the long road.

　　I listened, but there were no faraway sounds of cars or plow trucks.

　　Silence.

The Poet's Dog, P61-62
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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I Feel Different

　　"What are you thinking about?" I asked her.

　　"My youth," she said.

　　Nickel grinned.

　　"Like now?" he asked.

　　Flora shook her head.

　　"I feel different."

　　"You are different," I said. "You've been brave.You wrote a note and left it for your mother. You kept us in good food for nearly five days."

　　I thought of Sylvan's students, romping through life like puppies——young people trying to write their way into adulthood.

　　"Do you remember when I was born?" Flora asked Nickel.

　　"I do. I wanted a guinea pig."

　　"Do you remember when you are young?" Flora asked me.

　　"I'm not sure my memories are like yours. I remember Sylvan most because he gave me words for my memories. Before that I remember moments, but I had no words for them."

　　Flora lifted her shoulders and sighed.

　　"I think I feel different because I have worries. I never had worries before now."

The Poet's Dog, P55-56
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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Poignancy

　　"'Day three in the cabin during a horrific storm,'" Nickel read dramatically from his notebook. "'Flora is rummaging through the refrigerator like a hungry weasel, searching for something mysterious, and possibly poisonous.'"

　　Nickel wrote silently in his notebook everyday, and had just begun reading his view of our life in the cabin.

　　His writing is funny, sly, and some times poignant. Sylvan had taught me the word poignant.

　　"It may be the most important thing in poetry," Sylvan tells me. "Poignancy."

　　Sylvan would have said that Nickel had style.

The Poet's Dog, P36-37
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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Sometimes I Forget, too

　　In the night I got up once to push up the door lever with my nose and go outside into the wind.

　　Nickel raised his head.

　　"Where are you going?"

　　His voice sounded frightened.

　　"I'm going to pee," I said.

　　I heard Flora's sleepy, comforting voice in the dark.

　　"He's a dog," Flora said softly.

　　"Oh right," said Nickel. "I kept forgetting that."

　　I came back to my red rug next to Nickel.

　　His arm went round me again.

　　"Sometimes I forget, too," I said to Nickel.

The Poet's Dog, P20-21
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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Like Washed Apples

　　It is a windy afternoon. Sylvan's class of poets sit in a group. There is a fire in the fireplace. I lie on the red rug, listening. The students who want to be poets are eager and fresh, like washed apples. Sylvan and I are the only ones with gray, grizzled hair.

　　"They know so little about life," Sylvan whispers to me as he puts out plates of cookies and seltzer bottles.

　　"Maybe they just don't know what they know," I say, making Sylvan smile.

The Poet's Dog, P24
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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Words

　　I'm a dog. I should tell you that right away. But I grew up with words. A poet named Sylvan found me at the shelter and took me home. He laid down a red rug for me by the fire, and I grew up to the clicking of his keyboard as he wrote.

　　He wrote all day. And he read to me. He read Yeats and Shakespeare, Jmaes Joyce, Wordsworth, Natalie Babbitt, and Billy Collins. He read me Charlotte's Web, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Morning Girl, and my favorite story, Ox-Cart Man. So I saw how words follow one another and felt the comfort of them.

　　I understand words, but there are only two who understand me when I speak. Sylvan told me this.

　　"Poets and children," said Sylvan. "We are the same really. When you can't find a poet, find a child. Remember that."

The Poet's Dog, P3-4
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-229262-9

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Blue and Gray and Green

　　Caleb got up and went over to the small barn window.

　　"What color is the sea when it storms?" he asked Sarah.

　　"Blue," said Sarah, brushing her wet hair back with her fingers. "And gray and green."

　　Caleb nodded and smiled.

　　"Look," he said to her. "Look what is missing from your drawing."

　　Sarah went to stand between Caleb and Papa by the window. She looked a long time without speaking. Finally, she touched Papa's shoulder.

　　"We have squalls in Maine, too," she said. "Just like this. It will be all right, Jacob."

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P55-56
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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A Squall!

　　"Caleb! Anna!"

　　We ran outside and saw a huge cloud, horribly black, moving toward us pver the north fields. Papa slid down the roof, helping Sarh after him.

　　"A squall!" he yelled to us. He help up his arms and Sarah jumped off the porch roof.

　　"Get the horses inside," he ordered Caleb. "Get the sheep, Anna. And the cows. The barn is safest."

　　The grasses flattened. There was a hiss of wind, a sudden pungent smell. Our faces looked yellow in the strange light. Caleb and I jumped over the fence and found the animals huddled by the barn. I counted the sheep to make sure they were all there, and herded them into a large stall. A few raindrops came, gentle at first, then stronger and louder, so that Caleb and I covered our ears and stared at each other without speaking. Caleb looked frightened and I tried to smile at him. Sarah carried a sack into the barn, her hair wet and streaming down her neck, Papa came behind, Lottie and Nick with him, their ears flat against their heads.

　　"Wait!" cried Sarah. "My chickens!"

　　"No, Sarah!" Papa called after her. But Sarah had already run from the barn into a sheet of rain. My father followed her. The sheep nosed open their stall door and milled around the barn, bleating. Nick crept under my arm, and a lamb, Mattie with the black face, stood close to me, trembling. There was a soft paw on my lap, then a gray body. Seal. And then, as the thunder pounded and the wind rose and there was the terrible crackling of lightning close by, Sarah and Papa stood in the barn doorway, wet to the skin. Papa carried Sarah's chickens. Sarah came with an armful of summer roses.

　　Sarah's chickens were not afraid, and they settled like small red bundles in the hay. Papa closed the door at last, shutting some of the sounds of the storm. The barn was eerie and half lighted, like dusk without a lantern. Papa spread blankets around our shoulders and Sarah unpacked a bag of cheese and bread and jam. At the very bottom of the bag were Sarah's shells.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P53-55
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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Dune

　　After dinner, Sarah drew pictures to send home to Maine. She began a charcoal drawing of fields, rolling like the sea rolled. She drew a sheep whose ears were too big. And she drew a windmill.

　　"Windmill was my first word," said Caleb. "Papa told me so."

　　"Mine was flower," I said. "What was yours, Sarah?"

　　"Dune," said Sarah.

　　"Dune?" Caleb looked up.

　　"In Maine," said Sarah, "there are rock cliffs that rise up at the edge of the sea. And there are hills covered with pine and spruce trees, green with needles. But William and I found a sand dune all our own. It was soft and sparkling with bits of mica, and when we were little woe would slide down the dune into the water."

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P33-34
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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She Sat on the Porch Alone

　　The sheep made Sarah smile. She sank her fingers into their thick, coarse wool. She talked to them, running with the lambs, letting them sucks on her fingers. She named them after her favorite aunts, Harriet and Mattie and Lou. She lay down in the field beside them and sang "Sumer Is Icumen in," her voice drifting over meadow grasses, carried by the wind.

　　She cried when we found a lamb that had died, and she shouted and shook her fist at the turkey buzzards that came from nowhere to eat it. She would not let Caleb or me come near. And that night, Papa went with a shovel to bury the sheep and a lantern to bring Sarah back. She sat on the porch alone. Nick crept up to lean against her knees.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P32-34
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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When Will We Sing?

　　Seal stretched and made a small cat sound. I watched her circle the dogs and sniff the air. Caleb came out and stood beside me.

　　"When will we sing?" he whispered.

　　I shook my head, turning the white stone over and over in my hand. I wished everything was as perfect as the stone. I wished that Papa and Caleb and I were perfect for Sarah. I wished we had a sea of our own.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P24
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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Bring the Sea

　　Caleb slipped his hand into mine as we stood on the porch, watching the road. He was afraid.

　　"Will she be nice?" he asked. "Like Maggie?"

　　"Sarah will be nice," I told him.

　　"How far away is Maine?" he asked.

　　"You know how far. Far away, by the sea."

　　"Will Sarah bring some sea?" he asked.

　　"No, you cannot bring the sea."

　　The sheep ran in the field, and far off the cows moved slowly to the pond, like turtles.

　　"Will she like us?" asked Caleb very softly.

　　I watched the marsh hawk wheel down behind the barn.

　　He looked up at me.

　　"Of course she will like us." He answered his own question. "We are nice," he added, making me smile.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P20
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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But They Couldn't

　　I wiped my hands on my apron and went to the window. Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. Though winter was nearly over, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere. I looked at the long dirt road that crawled acros the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn't.

　　Slowly, one by one, they left. And then the days seemed long and dark like winter days, even though it wasn't winter. And Papa didn't sing.

Sarah, Plain and Tall, P5-6
Patricia MacLachlan
ISBN 978-0-06-440205-7

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