Sophie - Oct 27 2025

 

Sophie

Oct 27 2025

The neighbours’ house burned down.

When no one was home.

Not close enough

for embers to spark my own.

In the early morning

while I was in bed

oblivious.

Electrical, best guess.

Before demolition

and then reconstruction

 — if building back better

 can be any consolation

for all that was lost  — 

one jagged wall, half burned, still stands;

wood, charred black

silhouetted against the sky.

When it rains, an acrid smell 

that crinkles my nose and prickles its hairs

drifts my way,

settles heavily

then stays.

How powerfully scent

ignites some atavistic sense

of mortal dread;

as if the fear of fire

had been burned into our DNA

from the moment of conception.

Smell, as memento mori.

Just as the fly 

etched onto a portrait

of some long forgotten royal

or vain aristocrat

is meant as a corrective;

a sobering reminder

that even the great and powerful

also die.

Did I say no one was home?

Their little dog was.

Locked in,

putting in time

as trusting dogs do

awaiting her family’s return,

sleeping

circling

perking up her ears.

Sometimes

when the wind blows through the trees

and the leaves dance just so

I think I hear her frantic barking

and scratching at the door,

her final panting breaths

as the vortex of fire 

sucked out the last 

of the super-heated air.

A few unlikely objects

somehow survived.

The rest can be replaced.

But even after the men

from the volunteer brigade

had raked the cooling debris

for anything worth saving,

no remains

   — not the small metal tag

shaped like a bone

where Sophie is engraved —

were ever found.

Not only are house fires rare these days (and why firemen at loose ends now do double duty as EMS first responders), but the great irony in this case is that the husband of this family of 3 was himself a fireman!

It’s been many months since the fire. At the time, the smell was unmistakable, even though — out in the country as we are — we’re quite a distance apart. The only question was whether it was the acrid smell of that charred wood, or smoke drifting in from far-off forest fires. 

The tragedy of Sophie’s death is heart-breaking. Especially for any dog lover (which we all are). I hope this modest poem can at least stand as a memorial to a good dog. 

Have I since become a little paranoid? Yes! My dogs accompany me everywhere: they’re never left behind, left locked in. And since the fire, I find myself scrupulously turning off everything electrical before departing, even for a walk. 

Indeed “building back better”:  their new house is currently going up, and modern construction techniques far outstrip those of its outmoded 50+ year old predecessor. So I think that in the fullness of time the new house will somewhat compensate for all the stress, dislocation, and loss. (Insurance should cover the cost (or most of it). Nothing, of course, can make good on Sophie’s unthinkable death or the grief of her human companions.