Fearless

It was Winter attempting to be Spring
And the Library was full of students.
(Never seen such a beautiful campus
--a campus, for a library! Indeed!)
I sat quietly, struggling, in our meeting room
with collection of jotters, scribblers and doodlers,
so focused on our humming screens.
(This thing I was doing was impossible
and I hated it.
Still do.
But.)
At one point I needed to look out the window,
and see more then black times new roman on pixelated white.
There was a dog out by the bike racks,
owner's coat draped on the pipe and leash around the stand.
He was all black with dainty white toes and a smudge on his nose,
maybe fifty pounds, no more.
He waited at the very end of it's lead, watching where its master went.
(I could not see who they were, nor when they left their friend outside,
but did see the two children approaching.)
They were small, perhaps weighing in the same as our
lab-pit mix, red-collared, floppy-eared boy.
One remained by dad, who watched just as I did, but the other one -
fearless
bright orange shoes and a shirt of washed out rose
padded with faux stealth over to the great beast, one hand raised, poised,
ready to strike,
face twisted in concentration at the corner of a small smile
The dog watched her hand as it dances just above his smudged nose,
and then
like a ballerina's dance,
it came down
gently and skipping
over his forehead.
His tail started wagging.
She crouched in the chilly not-so-chilly air
by the bike racks at the library
and huddled there,
comforting the dog,
whispering things I could not hear.