Why Don't You Finish Anything You Start?

as read by Jeremy:

as sung in Robert Gross' setting by Pamela Dellal at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, accompanied by Michael Manning (piano) and Roy Sansom (recorder):

The untrained dog flushes a bird
but she does not know there is
something she is supposed to wait for,
a way these things are done,
so she chases it, barking at the sky
until she flushes another
which she chases until
she flushes another
and so across the field,
right, left, back, away,
back and away again
chasing another and another
until she lies down exhausted
not far from where she started,
having brought back
nothing.

She will be here again tomorrow.
Together we will run
and run.

as read by Jeremy (audio only):