Sorry about your dog, Gary. Hope the other one is OK.
This makes me realise that poetry is good because it lets us understand our
thought processes.
I just read a book that bowled me over. it's Pandora's Handbag, by Elizabeth
Young, an avant garde literary critic who died aged 50 in 2001
Apart from the collected journalism on current disestablishment literature,
(including strongly on American lit) there's an incredible elegy for a cat
she owned for 18 years.
Elizabeth Young. Pandora's Handbag: Adventures in the book world. London,
Serpentstail,2001, ISBN 1 85242 526 1
Library of Congress card no. 00-109880
Can't recomment it highly enough.
SallyE
on 10/1/03 12:55 am, Gary Blankenship at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Death of a Dog: Four Ball
>
> Through the summer,
> busy with trips and travel,
> family, housework and life,
> I avoided the call,
> made excuses that it was warm,
> he was comfortable,
> his companion would be lonely.
>
> As fall wore on,
> I watched him stagger to eat,
> each step seemed more difficult than the last,
> but the days were still comfortable,
> winter weeks away,
> chores and visits took my time,
> and I did not call.
>
> December,
> I resolved to call after the New Year,
> to wait until the holidays over,
> the house empty of distractions.
> But after the first, I waited,
> excuses made throughout this week.
> I really meant to do it today.
>
> He died last night.
> I never made the call to put him away.
>
> Fifteen years
> with a dachshund's bad spine.
> I hope he is finally comfortable.
>
> *
>
> He lived his last few years in a large kennel with his buddy, Buck, part
> retriever, part Doberman. Foul Ball was exiled to the kennel due to a lack
> of bladder control and his obsession with the cat. When out, he did nothing
> by chase the cat. She, of course, teased him.
>
>
>
>
> Jan Jenifer Lawrence at: http://gardawg.homestead.com/gardawg.html ---
> Writer's Hood at http://www.writershood.com/... Poets for Peace.... ˇPoemas
> sí, balas no!
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