So many firsts

I suppose parents are used to this, and I'm not advancing it as a novel insight, but hell, the world must be  a dizzying place for a young animal: all those new sights, sounds, smells. Especially of course smell if you're a dog.

I've been watching Simon deal with all the firsts in his life: first car trip, first meal out,as it were, first sight of a guinea fowl, first night out (photo above; it wasn't quite as restful all the time). The fact is, of course, as parents presumably know, that the young animal takes it all pretty much in his stride (well, that's not the best metaphor, I suppose), meeting it all with the blandness of innocence. Just as well, really, that he doesn't know what horrors are out there. To get literary about this, the Greek tragedians were much exercised by the question of whether anybody would want to be born if they knew what was waiting for them (answer: by and large, no).
Of course, not all first experiences can be negotiated on a basis of trusting innocence. Take staircases, for instance: you may be able to get up without a problem, but can you get down?

 The text for the day is once again from Philip Larkin. As far as I know this otherwise admirable poet wrote no poems about dogs (which may explain his habitual moroseness), but he did write about cattle, racehorses, rabbits (I'll spare you the poem about the rabbit; it's called 'Myxamatosis', if you want to depress yourself) and, in this instance, lambs.

First Sight

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

 As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

For once, Larkin takes the cheerful view: some surprises may be pleasant, life may improve. As I look at Simon newly stumbling to and fro, I can only hope  that the wretched width of cold is not a precondition for that.