Ode to dog
A friend of mine is going through the sorrow of a dog who is dying. He always referred to the dog not by name by simply “the dachshund” but that belied his deep love for the dog. Now that more than 16 years have passed and the dog is preparing to go, the humans clutch and rail against the inevitable. It’s always that way.
Here is another poem by John Updike about losing his dog – this one more dark than the sentimental one I have posted before:
Another Dog’s Death
in
Collected Poems, 1953-1993
by John Updike
Knopf
For days the good old bitch had been dying, her back
pinched down to the spine and arched to ease the pain,
her kidneys dry, her muzzle white. At last
I took a shovel into the woods and dug her grave
in preparation for the certain. She came along,
which I had not expected. Still, the children gone,
such expeditions were rare, and the dog,
spayed early, knew no nonhuman word for love.
She made her stiff legs trot and let her bent tail wag.
We found a spot we liked, where the pines met the field.
The sun warmed her fur as she dozed and I dug;
I carved her a safe place while she protected me.
I measured her length with the shovel’s long handle;
she perked in amusement, and sniffed the heaped-up earth.
Back down at the house, she seemed friskier,
but gagged, eating. We called the vet a few days later.
They were old friends. She held up a paw, and he
injected a violet fluid. She swooned on the lawn;
we watched her breathing quickly slow and cease.
In a wheelbarrow up to the hole, her warm fur shone.