I leave the ashes in Greenville
but he comes anyways,
drags his stiff back legs into my room
at night, panting. His fur dusty and gray
his eyes glassy, critical.
The heat is too much for you here
I reason, and he adjusts his front legs,
lifting one, then the other, back
and forth. He watches the grackles, bored,
the morning rising slow and clouded.
He rests his chin on the floor
watching as I roll in my sheets,
listing all the places I didn’t bring him.
He yawns, shuffles his backside.
You were supposed to be a tree
I tell him, looking for the sun
through the window.
I was supposed to plant you.
This is truly heartbreaking for me to read. And the photo…..my God. Did Henry take it? The day of???
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Thank you for writing this poem.
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No! I took it last March when I was there for a week with him. It was a great week!
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Nice. Yet he is a tree — forever growing in your heart.
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Thanks sweetheart; I just wept for him again.
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Is Rocks visiting you at night in your dreams?
He’s probably chasing a rabbit somewhere over the next hill in wonderland. Keep writing !
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ouch the beauty
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Not too late to plant that tree, Zoe. Hugs!
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That’s what I say, Dan!
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