You push through the gate
Into our front yard.
And Freddie comes
Up to you,
And I wonder with no fence
Between you
Just what will happen–
You greet him
Nose to nose
But Freddie backs off
And barks
As is his wont
When he gets afraid.
Death comes
Not as terror
But as sickness
To our Krankenhaus
On the hill.
You must have known,
With patients every afternoon,
My daughter, Amy, quite deaf,
Freddie mostly blind,
And my wife, Diane, with M. S.
Dying piece by piece.
You look so gentle,
Not Death but dying.
But I should have known
With magpies,
Those black and white birds,
On your back
And you just lay there
In the sun.
Then when I tried
To take your picture
You got scared
And jumped
But halfway
Over the fence
In a single bound
When in the past
You would have
Cleared it easily.
Later Diane
Saw twenty magpies
Dive-bombing your back,
Pecking mercilessly at you
And you never lifted
An antler to protect yourself.
What once was proud
Now buckles within.
Related Posts
The above poem is from my recent book of poetry, Odds and Ends. Freddy died several years ago. Now we have Sophie see, Guard Dog: Sophie and the Deer.
See also Freddy and the Buck