Dog loss

[Paul Di Filippo]

This poem helped me a bit last year.


    The House Dog's Grave

I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
  Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
  Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
  You see me there.

  So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
  Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
  And you'd soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
  The marks of my drinking-pan.

  I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
  On the warm stone,
  Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the night through
  I lie alone.

  But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
  Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
  And where you sit to read--and I fear often grieving for me--
  Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

  You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
  To think of you ever dying
  A little dog would get tired, living so long.
  I hope than when you are lying

  Under the ground like me your lives will appear
  As good and joyful as mine.
  No, dear, that's too much hope: you are not so well cared for
  As I have been.

  And never have known the passionate undivided
  Fidelities that I knew.
  Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided. . . .
  But to me you were true.

  You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
  I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
  To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
  I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.


Robinson Jeffers, 1941



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