Dear Gundog Magazine,

Half a dozen issues a year, which is not quite two pages a day, so we must read slowly, though to be honest, and no disrespect to your writers, even Ernest Hemingway could not write a good dog. There is one in The Garden of Eden, I think, but the sex in that book distracted me. Regardless, I love Gundog Magazine and think it only right to tell you so. Roberto Benigni, accepting his Oscar, made a fool of himself but said that to do otherwise was inhuman because it is immoral to hide gratitude. He said something like that. To be honest, I don’t have a dog. All I have is your magazine, so I am grateful for it, for all the marsh-wet Labradors and broken ducks you give me, all those skies like washed Chinaware and tree branches full of rich perfume, grainy autumn and gunpowder. I will get a dog someday. Next year, I hope. These days I listen to Tony Peterson podcasts and think of dog names. Melville is not bad. What do you think? Emily Dickinson had a dog named Carlo. There is something poetic about the love of a dog, but gundogs seem like novels because the story goes on so long, all the walking and waiting, so many returns. Gundogs are novels that we don’t want to end. Of course, my poet friends say that you can love a dog without turning birds into bloody confetti, but they have never owned a gun. I grew up in Indiana so it doesn’t seem insane. I doubt that most poets can actually identify a skylark. Or a nightingale. Sappho said, “I would not think to touch the sky with two arms,” but I would. When a flock of birds passes, I want to take them in my arms. A duck doesn’t so much explode as fall, which we all do. The dog carries it to your hand. Anyway, thank you for your magazine, which is full of beautiful dogs. When I was younger, I read poetry but these days I find that most of the time the print is too small. When I was a boy, I had a beagle but we never hunted anything. Mostly, we sat in the backyard. The world escaped. Now I want to walk and walk, even in the rain. I want to see the seasons. I want to hear the birds. Winter is coming through the trees. What more is there to life?