Sunday, March 21, 2010

In Process, No Title

Black boot on snow crunches
and the beaver, just a few feet away,
so slick and narrow of body,
dives into the water and disappears.
His brown fur gleamed in the sunlight.

Not like the two deer that one time years ago,
whose coats were a dull, soft brown and covered in ticks.
The male was skittish and moved further away
but the female, she stayed still, watching
as I inched closer until I could touch her flank
while our eyes locked and we created a moment
of acknowledgement. A moment of accord.

“But did you touch it?” My friend asked.
She still mourned her nephew, dead in the first days
of Afghanistan, 2001,
and who once touched a deer in the wild.
“No, I didn’t touch it.”
Her face relaxed, then smiled with satisfaction.

Her last words to him, “Don’t go.”

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

The Good Times


As everything is so fresh, my mind keeps returning to the upsetting and sad events of the past few days, especially yesterday. But, when that happens I remind myself to think of a good memory of Kenyon, in order to diminish the bad memories.

I'm remembering his love of vanilla ice cream. I would take him to an outdoor ice cream shop every summer. He was so adorable, with the ice cream around his mouth.
Our walks in Hueston Woods, and how he followed me in the nearly dry creek, hopping from one rock to another, exactly as I did. He would stop and look at me a bit uncertainly and with my encouragement make it to the next rock.
His love of children.
His need to be the center of attention at ALL times.
How warm and soft he felt.
Our daily walks around the neighborhood.
When I'd put him in the car, he'd immediately scramble over to the driver's side and sit up so proud, with his chest puffed out, like he thought he could drive!
How, despite his small size, he could still nearly push me out of bed.
The way he'd be right at the door to greet me.
So many good memories.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

A Different Way

The logistics are tough.
Navigating in a world made new by loss so white hot and deep. How? But so much in life just happens, with no planning or foresight of my own.
But how, anyway?
I am sensitive to the energies around us and feel suffering deeply. Before, when feeling overwhelmed by the cruelties of others, I could think to myself, "At least I have Kenyon." A simple idea with profound meaning for me, and great comfort. I believed that my love and care of him helped create balance in some way. Helped reaffirm the good in this plane of existence.
I no longer have that.
I no longer have Kenyon.
I am sent reeling out, unmoored, hysterical, bereft.
My stalwart companion gone.

For Kenyon, and Others

The world becomes a cold stranger

when you lose someone you love.

Why always at the beginning of Spring?

Good Friday, March, April,

rain, wind, dark skies.

No matter how profound

and inconsolable

there will never be, never,

another time you will

feel them in your arms.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Kenyon

Two months after my father passed away, I went to a rescue shelter that cared only for Shelties. A little dog walked up to me and stood next to me and stared at me for a long time. He wouldn't play catch, he ignored the other dogs. The next day I returned, ready to adopt a different dog. I found out that dog had bitten a little girl. And there was that little dog again, right at my feet, staring up at me. He remembered me. He came home with me that day, nearly seven years ago.
Kenyon was for most of those years my only friend and my only family. He was and is loved so deeply and so profoundly by me that I can't begin to put it into words. He has been a steady source of unconditional love and comfort to me.

I knew for a while he wasn't in the best of health, but he was happy, content, eager to go on walks even if it meant he moved slower. Tonight, he collapsed. I rushed him to the vet's which is where he is now, hooked up to an IV because he is severely dehydrated. The outlook is grim. There's a small chance the fluids will improve his situation, maybe enough so he can come home for a little while longer. Maybe I am writing that to fool myself into thinking it will be ok, delaying the inevitable because it's too difficult to let go. It's painful enough knowing he is alone in a cage, sick and in pain.

I truly do not know how I will go through my day to day without him.



Monday, March 8, 2010

Renewal


Had a few quiet moments to myself to walk in the woods at Q's aunt's house. There is an old stone wall, the kind I saw all the time when I lived in Massachusetts, and large pine trees, like the one in the backyard at the home where I grew up. I just don't see these things where I live now and I've missed them so much that a part of me has dried up due to this lack. A disconnection there. Seeing those things again, and to be in the woods, to hear the crunching of snow and the rushing of the creek water, all felt like renewal.
I feel it inside of me, this dry, empty longing that nothing around here will fill or repair. There's a comfort and familiarity when I am back there that I don't feel here where I live. Now, thanks to my love, I will have more opportunities to return to New England and New York and fill that space up and hopefully feel some peace and fulfillment because of it.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Bad News

There really is a time
when bad news is heard
(in such a way that it is meant not to upset)
and one falls to one’s knees
and calls out
futilely,
“Jesus.”

Just Like Always

The steady grace of an empty chair,

unwavering in its loyalty

to all you hope for unto death,

may creak and sigh under your expectations

but never complain of remaining empty

lo, all these years.

Just like in a van Gogh,

longing for company and anxious for Jerusalem,

its negative space mute witness

to all that never was.