POEMS FOR DYLAN
Your greatest needs are not material,
Your eyes have the look of eyes
that have seen below the surface.
Somehow you know nothing lasts.
Have you come to us from another time
freighted with foresight?
You watch everything we do
as if familiar with disaster.
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I could talk to him about anything
I couldn’t tell what he understood
but he always listened intently.
His eyes shone with intelligence and joy,
proud he was part of the discussion
whatever it was.
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Everyone said it was the right thing.
You were old and tired, you cried in your sleep.
The iron crab had you in its claws.
The vet slid the needle into your leg.
You made a last lunge towards me
before the light went out in your eyes
and she told us your heart had stopped.
I thought my own heart would stop.
You might have lasted another day,
another week, even a month,
You were content to lie on the rug
and watch us. You didn’t ask to die.
We did that for you.
As she carried you out
your beautiful head pointed our way,
a last look at the ones you had loved.
Could you have understood?
Could you have forgiven?
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I always knew where to find you -
in doorways, because you liked the breeze
that blew from the deck and ruffled your fur,
on the sheepskin by the fire,
on the top step of the stairs.
There were places you made your own.
Now I have lost you, your places are empty.
You are nowhere in our world.
I promised you, years ago,
that your memory would be safe.
If I look in my heart, I still find you,
in that other place you made your own,
the place you will always be Dylan.
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POEMS BY DYLAN
I have lived all my years in this house.
Its yard, with its trees and rocks and stream
and its many scents, has been my entire world.
Once I was too young to climb the steep steps.
Finally, I am too old.
I like it best when they light the fire
and sit together on the deck, he and she,
and my brothers and I lie beside them
watching the column of smoke
climb into a clear sky, to join the ravens.
There is music and the soft clink of glasses
and I feel part of the great love they share.
I lay my head on his feet,
everything is how it should be.
Something so beautiful should last for ever.
He has told me there is no for ever.
Each life has a limited but unknown span.
All we can do is love those we are with.
I follow his advice, every day,
I show him the only way a dog can.
Despite my aching joints and tired limbs,
despite the steep challenge of the stairs,
I am never far from him.
I look at him with such intensity
that he knows, he must know what I feel.
*****************
In my yard there’s a large, smooth rock
on which he has written the names of pets.
I asked him why my name was missing.
“To be on the rock,” he said, “first you must die.
You will never see your own name there.”
“If I were not here,” I asked, “who would you have
to lie beside your feet while you read,
to follow you around the house,
to kiss you at the top of the stairs?
Who would you have to love you as I do?”
He said, “Dylan is a name carved in my heart
safe from the damage of sun and rain
a marker even time cannot spoil.
Nothing can erase the traces you leave.”
*******************
While he sleeps, I transmit my thoughts.
In the morning, he commits them to paper.
Are they my words or his? Does it matter?
It’s a collaboration, the way we deal
with troubling thoughts, he and I together.
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POEM BY BOWIE
Dylan said it would be my job, when the time came
to explain the world to you, through a dog’s eyes.
He knew the time was near, knew from your tears,
knew from the look on the vet’s face.
He would have liked a little longer
to sleep by the fire, waking only
to make sure you were there.
Now there are fewer bowls at mealtime,
you take fewer cookies from the jar,
there is a bed missing at night.
Everything reminds me of our loss.
He told me what you said about the rock,
how he would have to die to see his name there.
I see his name there, now, and wish I didn’t.
He told me you said everything ends.
I lack his wisdom, his way with words.
You must understand if I come up short.
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