An Old Friend is Fading

Some of you know Spencer, my fourteen-year-old Golden Retriever. This is about him.

Spencer Falling

Tonight’s stroll around the lake

was comfortable, warm  and calm

with the four of us – we two tailless bipeds,

leashed to Ginger and you, all sniffing

the sweet-scented summer air

at a slow pace. We talked our footsteps

in a weave about you and to you, pausing

at the picnic table when you looked tired.

You laid at my feet in the muggy shade

as I scratched behind your ears,

and I thought we could do this for a while.

But as we walked back to the car

I watched as your front leg gave out

and you fell hard onto the crushed gravel

of the path, filling the side of your mouth

with little stones. I called your name

and we rushed to your side as you struggled

to your feet. Your leg trembled as you stood,

and you leaned on me, looking up, panting

while I cleaned the pebbles from your mouth.

You took a few tentative steps, then sighed,

lowered your head and pushed on.

Matching your slow pace,

my eyes as big and wet as your tongue,

I did the same.

The Cedar

Here's day nineteen's submission of NaPoWriMo (a poem a day for the month of April in honor of National Poetry Month):

The Cedar

The cedar in the front yard

leans toward the house

and groans when it blows.

This worries me.

But not enough to call the arborist

and have him come cut it down.

We paid him a lot of green

five years ago to thin it,

to climb to the top with a chainsaw

lopping off limbs as he went

so the wind could blow through

its arching green branches

instead of knock it down.

Being a tree,

and doing what trees do,

it’s filled back in,

looks healthy and, the neighbors say,

“Great.”

They say the same about me,

and I have a bum knee,

an aching foot, a stent in my heart,

and I don’t see so well anymore.

I hope the cedar is doing better than me,

but when it blows, just to be safe,

I move to the other side of the house.