Tag Archives: Eulogy for a dog

Panegyric Poetry: Ode to Morrie

32 Replies

 

Ode to Morrie

Oh you ball of energy, you little snarl of fluff.
When it comes to hugging you, I cannot get enough.
Your hair so black and curly, your teeth so sharp and white
that it is an honor when you choose to bite.

Your flair at ball retrieval truly has no equal.
However many thrown for you, you always seek a sequel.
Your eyes luminous marbles, your nails a lovely shape
from running over terraces to stem a squirrel’s escape.

Your hairy little jowls would put Borgnine’s to shame.
So many little mysteries for which you aren’t to blame.
What creature eats the birdseed spread out on the wall?
What other creature has your leap? What other dog the gall?

You give the cats their exercise and what possum would dare
to stray into a garden given to your care?
Oh brave little caroler when interloper passes,
Your mighty barks belie your size. No burglar tests your sasses.

At night you serenade me with your howling croon
accompaniment to ambulances or the rising moon.
My revered alarm clock, my companion after dark,
as now and then throughout the night I celebrate your bark.

Each day I laud thy energy, thy beauty and thy voice.
When I contemplate your dogginess, I cannot but rejoice!
This ode of praise I write for thee, I cannot help but pen it.
If there had been a dog messiah, my dear, you would have been it!

 

A Panegyric poem of praise for dVerse Poets

Frida Resumes Her Perch

9 Replies

Frida Resumes her Perch

If you have been around for awhile, you know about my dog Frida, who passed away in October, 27 months ago.  At that time, I published this poem in her memory: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/10/11/look-up-poem-for-a-good-good-girl/
which was about, among other things, her love of standing on the dome of my house and supervising the world about her. For two years, I fantasized about finding a dog similar to her and cementing it to the dome with her ashes inside so she could spend eternity in her favorite spot. Finally, I located what I thought was the right dog, and this is the story that followed:

Please click on photos to enlarge and read the captions.

Diego came up to inspect the situation.
Later, I returned to the gallery and brought home a larger dog in Frida’s more classic position–sitting or standing erect surveying the neighborhood.
Gerardo and his brother lugged her up to the roof, and
this one was perfect.
We assembled the concrete, the water and trowels,
And they built a concrete base for the sculpture.
The next job was to get Frida’s ashes into the small hole at the bottom of the sculpture.
I brought a funnel, but it didn’t work.
Finally, they cut a corner off the plastic bag that held her remains and poured it into the hole.
Once she was situated on the base,
Frida II is installed.
Of course, the neighbors soon gathered to witness just what was going on. Brad and Dave were first to notice.
Then Thomas.
Then the construction guys from the house being constructed up the hill behind Thomas and Brad and Dave’s houses.
Then went down to look up. She was going to be perfect.
And Frida’s ashes went into this effigy which we concreted in place on her favorite place on the dome, to watch for as long as I have any say in the matter.
Once Gerardo and his brother had left, I went over to Brad and Dave’s to see how she looked from their house. They definitely have the best view.. from every door and window on the east side of their house.
Keep a watch for us, girl .
For the fifteen or more years Frida lived with me, this is where she was most of the time, checking out the neighborhood and occasionally barking at someone who didn’t belong there.

Ironically, the day Gerardo and his brother were due to come permanently install Frida’s memorial, my cat of 18 years, Annie, finally grew so ill that I called the vet to come to the house to put her to sleep, and luckily Gerardo and brother didn’t make it, but came instead today. Somehow this reaching of the goal to memorialize Frida helped somewhat to dilute the sadness over Annie’s  departure. Plans are in the works for her memorial.  R.I.P. beloved friends.

Look Up! (Eulogy for a Good, Good Girl)

66 Replies

img_0618

Look Up!

She used to chase the shadows of birds across the ground
and dig where they disappeared
and never once thought to look up,
no matter how many times I tried to tell her to.

Chasing light across the pool, she’d pace
back and forth, along its further edge.

daily-life-color222-1

Her first playmates the cats,
she could not follow them up into the trees,
but stood instead, barking at the bark they clung to.
Thinking herself a cat, perhaps,
or all of them some new species in between,
she followed wherever it was possible to go.
Up the broad steps to the second floor,
across the terraza and just a small leap
to the ledge of the high sloping dome of the roof.
Up to its top to lie or stand and bark at all who trudged up our mountain
to intrude into her world.

018

She could see for blocks,
turning like a sundial with the sun
to change her focus, but usually starting at the point,
southward, that most invaders came from.
Neighbors led by unwelcome dogs on leashes
passed below her on their morning walks,
or farmers carrying hoes or machetes
up to the fields above.

Lines of burros plodding beneath her, facing uphill,
small herds of cattle
flooding down to the lake for water—
none escaped the attention of this reina,
who would bark directions to be on their way, fast,
and not to loiter.

020

No creature had greater staying power than she.
The cats, bored with the high view,
moved to the bushes and trees to hunt possums, squirrels and salamanders.
Only she stayed true to her original position
as she looked ever down from that high dome,
only deserting it a year ago,
when I locked the gate that blocked her progress up—
not because I judged it unsafe for a dog grown arthritic and less sure of her step,
but because of the new puppy,
untrained by cats and with feet less experienced than hers.

img_0606

Feeling punished, perhaps, she traded her high domain
for a place beneath the terrace table

from which she watched the two upstarts
speed by to cavort in the lower garden
where she once chased bird shadows in the grass.

Version 2
She exercised her staying power one last time
as, looking down on a world reduced to only me,
never once blinking, she stared into my eyes
as I crouched beside the vet’s high table,
and looked straight back up into them,
the closest I’d ever been to her.

That table’s surface, straight and gleaming stainless steel,
was where she lay with her front legs spread-eagled
for the long hour it took to finally climb up that high dome again.
I wonder if she heard me as,
“Good girl,” I told her a hundred times that final hour, and meant it.
“Good, good girl. Look up now. And go on.
You were always such a good, good girl, watching out for us.
But now, look up. Go on.”

img_7345

The prompt word today is “Original.”