What I remember best about it
Was the way the red clay
Clung to her fur like leaves
Stuck to windows by the rain.
You brought that basket there,
I held the old girl
In her pain,
And we gave her
The care she needed.
Took her somewhere
The air she was breathing
Wouldn’t have her sneezing –
Wouldn’t have her snout all full of soot.
In case her hair was tangled
in the sticks as she
Licked around for lizards
That she’d never caught,
(That if she’d ever caught,
She wouldn’t know what to do)
We made sure to
Bring her favourite brush,
The one with bristles
Thick as a broom.
We brought a bottle
Of that Bordeaux stuff.
Yes, that’s the one –
How it always made us blush –
And we had it with the Camembert,
And with the pomegranates
And the cream.
I remember we were dressed
For warmer weather.
I was in linens
And you, your moccasins
welt in nubuck leather.
We took the old two door,
the coupe you adored,
And drove down the nine mile way
To where our little Nile met the bay.
We were going for our
Spring stay In the cabin we’d built
On the provision of a dream.
As soon as we arrived,
We went swimming in the stream.
We stripped ourselves
Down to our selves and
Disappeared amongst the reeds.
We were giddied like we’d
Had some sort of “Irish Mede”
And slumped ourselves
Into a Pre-Raphaelite fantasy.
The fog was clearing,
The dog was snoring,
And the morning was nearing
As our hair lapped
At our lips amidst
A kind of shimmering congregation of sun rises
In inumerable illuminations
Reflected here and there.
Then that wonderous dilation
Of time caught each of us
In the eye as we realised
The sky was offering lamentations
To a low, unsteady sigh:
Sleeping in the amber light,
The old girl had died.
She’d taken flight as we’d cried,
Flown up and onward
Into the night,
Or into the light.
Which ever is
A dog’s persuasion.