I took the two young dogs out for a romp in the woods late this afternoon, around 3:30, when it was still about 86 degrees and humid and no one was out but me and the two canines. There is a stretch of woods about two blocks from our house, maybe 90 acres adjacent to but not part of the local metropark. Occasionally we see other neighbors and their dogs in there, but mainly it’s just the three of us, running, jumping, laughing simply because we feel too good to not run or jump or laugh.

We wandered down into the ravine that runs along the creek, down a steep, rocky path that’s been worn by deer hooves, dog paws, and human feet. It was so humid you could almost feel the air, see it, although in the shade of the woods it was considerably cooler than on the street. I’m always struck by how real the woods look as we descend into the ravine, when I can see the tops of some trees, the middle of others. It all just looks hyper-real, as though up to that point I’ve been walking through a black and white Flatland and have suddenly been confronted by a world of color in three dimensions. The dogs were in constant motion, running back and forth, chasing each other, play fighting, then trotting off to sniff something new, now coming over for a quick pat and a “good dog” from me. On the other side of the creek, on the other side of the trees, we could hear the sounds of kids playing and screaming, guys shouting to each other on the basketball court. They couldn’t see us, couldn’t hear us, didn’t know we were there.

Coming back out of the ravine, there was a fallen tree on the path. The dogs whizzed by me. First was Mason, the gangly seven-month-old black lab mix who is all legs and tail and goofy gawkiness. He’s a little bigger than the log and cleared it easily. Almost neck and neck with him was Juno, a two-year-old furry bundle of energy and canine neuroses who is the most clever dog I’ve ever known. She weighs a shade under 40 pounds. The tree was probably about as tall as her head if she were standing on all fours. Juno looks like a medium brown dog who had dark chocolate syrup dripped all over her back. Her rear haunches sport fluffy pantaloon-like puffs of fur, topped by a tail that curves onto her back a full 360 degrees.

It was the haunches and tail that I saw as she launched herself into the air, over the dead tree. For one heartbeat, Juno was suspended in mid-air over the tree like the figures on Keats’ Grecian urn, always young, always vital, never moving or aging. There. That moment, that’s the one I’ll remember decades from now, when these dogs are dead and gone, when climbing out of the ravine is a chore or maybe even a memory for me. I’ll remember a dog flying through the air, levitated by pure joy.