The Old Dog - Oct 9 2024

 

The Old Dog

Oct 9 2024

In a cool fall

after a hothouse summer

the old dog has a charge in her step.

Her back legs

are as weak as ever

body as wasted,

but she doggedly forges on;

stumbling,

dragging a leg,

struggling on the steps.

I suspect she doesn't even remember

the years of incremental frailty

that led to this,

the middle-aged mastery

and adolescent bravado,

the puppy who wouldn’t stop.

That she imagines

she is the same dog she always was.

I’ve always envied this.

How she lives in the moment

without anxiety or regret.

And how, with no sense of decline

no notion of death

she is still content

and accepts without question.

She is a master of Zen

a Stoic philosopher.

But as her bad days increase

and the good ones lessen

I agonize

over the best time

to bring an end to this.

Not to play God,

but also not to wait

until her body fails

and leaves her suffering.

So I hand feed,

tend to her incontinence,

carry her when she tires.

Gently corral her

when her mind wanders

and she pads aimlessly off.

The loyalty of dogs

their humans must honour

by taking care

and standing by,

even when the going gets hard;

returning the same dogged constancy

they bestowed on us

throughout their too short lives.

Yet also somehow divine

when a life well lived

has finally reached its end.

Then being there

to see her off.

The old dog

cradled in my arms

as her body briefly trembles,

chest falls,

eyes drift shut.

The deep brown eyes

that always gazed into mine

with such absolute trust.