Returning

We watched him as he slowly lost his touch:

His graying muzzle scattered food about;
his hips protested climbing up the stairs;
it took an extra effort just to stand,
and rest his paws and head upon our laps.
And when we found the carpet stained and wet,
we knew then what we didn’t want to know. 

A season passed:  the summer’s drying heat
gave way ungently down to autumn chill;
treeleaves curled around the chimneysmoke
and rattled over frosted flowerbeds.
We sat, conversing; and he’d come to us,
sensing that our talk included him.

It wasn’t fair, of course; of course we’d said
that we would never let it come to this:
a damning instrument, the telephone;
appointment so conveniently arranged;
and just like that, we had another week,
and that was all. 

The days now passed more slowly than before,
yet quickly, too:  Teeming with adult tasks,
our lives too crowded for this coming time,
we somehow missed the time we’d meant to keep,
to spend some moments with him at our feet,
to run our fingers slowly through his fur. 

Until, at last, we stopped our adult world,
resolved this once to do the rightful thing,
and teased the old legs to the wagon door
and drove until the country lay about,
misted and chilled, its skeleton exposed
to the advancing whiteness of the year. 

He sensed it, now, again, knew what to do;
knew, too, that flesh would need be coaxed to do
the things that age remembered, youth performed.
And coax he did, and staggered through the brush,
disrupting rodent homes, annoying ducks,
and throwing leaves in several directions. 

He rediscovered all the things he knew,
charged his world again with novelty,
once again remembered all his tricks;
and seemed so, through the shimmer of our eyes
again the playful pup that we brought home
so long and short a space of years ago. 

When darkness fell that night, we called him in,
and didn’t wonder that we waited long,
much longer than the time he used to stay
to see if we were really calling him.
And when he struggled back into the car,
all leaves and dirt and tongue and steamy breath, 

when he shook himself and said hello,
burying his cold nose against our necks,
when we brought him home and dried him off,
gave him twicefold dinner, went to bed
(he sleeping at the door, the very spot
he’d bravely occupied so many years, 

guarding us from strange and threatening shades);
when we drifted severally to sleep,
we each knew then how simple it would be,
tomorrow:  call the people, let them know
that no, we were not ready, not just yet;
no, we’d let them know when we’d be in. 

Yet he obliged us, as he’d always done:
Somewhere between the darkness and the dawn,
the sharper images of dreams took hold,
and tempted him along the misty banks:
his nose alert, interpreting the wind,
he understood what it told him to do;
and lightly springing back into the years,
he ran the further distance to the light.

                        Remembering Webster:
                        September 4, 1983 -
                        October 4, 1998