throwingheat

Neighbors drove by on a perfect Saturday morning,
sealed up and eyes front.
It was very odd to me that they could motor past our sloping lawn
and not see the river of your life flowing
way down deep in its glorious chasm, just beyond the mailbox
and between the birches.
I sat with you and stroked your brittle coat
while it turned warm as a Colorado stone in the sun,
trying to soothe your bones
which had grown alarmed in recent weeks,
their dependable cover fast disappearing.
I thought of things I might say
when it came time—too quickly, in a rush of blood to a sodden heart—but
I’ve said them all, I think.
You may not have heard because sometimes I merely whispered
with a song in my head as you rattled
the tall grass across a moonlit field.
I’ve said them all and they fall pitifully short of good boy.
Better I run my fingers across the wild country
you can no longer reach, and linger on your belly.
As you pushed your gray muzzle into the edgy breeze
and identified something that this day you’d rather not stand and question,
you spoke to me: Give me this moment,
this sweet air,
the hope of steak,
my bowl of water. Allow me a giving surface
on which to dream and run,
to bark and leap,
to twitch and rejoice in the fullness of capture.
You see, you see?
I caught life, oh I ran it toward deep green timber and stopped it on the riverbank.
Those were the proud yelps I heard, your final summons.
One day or one heartbeat is as good as another;
I pray your first and your last have made fine companions, running the bend in a twinkling sweep toward the hand that always beckons.