Honk If You Love Snoopy, it said.

 

She didn’t press on the horn,

but oh, how she could have.

 

Remembering how she had

admired his confidence,

his imagination, his humor.

 

Yet it was his happy dance

that she loved the most.

 

The way he would close his eyes,

toss his head back,

twirl in circles, oblivious

to everything but the bliss.

 

How thrilled she was, then,

when at 16 she was cast as Snoopy

in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

 

Her final summer as a camper,

last chance to play

before her attention

would turn toward the younger girls.

 

So play she did —

learning lines, lyrics, blocking.

 

Laughing with Linus, Lucy, Charlie Brown,

the overheated rec hall ringing with joy,

their chorus of song floating out

across the cove.

 

Later out on the grass, under the pines —

the patient counselor nicknamed Sunshine

teaching the choreography for

Snoopy’s signature dance.

 

Encouraging the nondancer

with every step,

her brilliant smiles sparkling

with yes.

 

Day after day, she practiced and practiced,

sometimes her feet

flushing with frustration,

searing with self-doubt.

 

Yet determined to put the pieces together —

eventually adding top hat and cane,

then singing into the ecstasy

of his favorite meal, Suppertime.

 

This chance to be

so alive

so unabashedly free

so unselfconsciously silly.

 

This chance to

live a dream,

a dream she still dreams —

 

to be playful dog

warming sun

blissful abandon —

and to emerge after struggle

into the communion

of an iridescent harmony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sue Mapel is a poet, social worker, and educator living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her 10 summers at camp in Maine as a teen and young adult remain some of the most formative experiences of her life. Her memories of camp offer inspiration, especially following an alumnae reunion where she bunked in the same cabin as she had exactly 50 years ago.