Remembering Stella and Lily,
Who Died on the Same Day
I’m stepping through the door.
And I’m floating in the most peculiar way.
And the stars look very different today.
Solemnly you recognize, when measured by human time
That the lives of dogs are much too short, so you take
Each little second and make it seven, and do so out of
Love, a love so vast it needs more than a lifetime to claw
Loose the last layers of longing in a person’s remembering.
And so you love them deeply and purely, at times with
An awe that transcends the reach of your own imagination.
Nobody else can understand the joys of this joy, of these
Dogs who, when their time came, stepped through the door,
Leaving in their wake, like the rocketing light of the stars,
Iridescence that undoes darkness and melancholy, whose
Lingering presence, charged by the lives they lived, makes
You feel they’re still there, curled up at your feet, asleep.
First published in The Rumpus, January 8, 2017
Who Died on the Same Day
I’m stepping through the door.
And I’m floating in the most peculiar way.
And the stars look very different today.
Solemnly you recognize, when measured by human time
That the lives of dogs are much too short, so you take
Each little second and make it seven, and do so out of
Love, a love so vast it needs more than a lifetime to claw
Loose the last layers of longing in a person’s remembering.
And so you love them deeply and purely, at times with
An awe that transcends the reach of your own imagination.
Nobody else can understand the joys of this joy, of these
Dogs who, when their time came, stepped through the door,
Leaving in their wake, like the rocketing light of the stars,
Iridescence that undoes darkness and melancholy, whose
Lingering presence, charged by the lives they lived, makes
You feel they’re still there, curled up at your feet, asleep.
First published in The Rumpus, January 8, 2017