Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 09 November 2015)
HALEY
A fur ball cavorting across the floor
A puppy infused with life
Bringing us joy, inconvenience and strife
Who gets to put her out the door?
Newspapers and mops disinfectant galore
What do we do with her when we need to leave home?
Perhaps a cage, then again we’re not sure
Maybe we’ll just stuff her on the back seat floor
Year after year, at least fifteen and more
Greeting us with exuberant joy
Finding no fault when the world treats us cruel
Losing her teeth and sending the vet’s kids to school
Fur turning grey as she maintains her pace
Holding her own we begin to notice she’s deaf
Cars are a concern as she wonders away
She still carries on with incomparable grace
She no longer must be told not to jump on the couch
The spring is not in her now
Perhaps we should do something but we don’t know how
When we try to discuss it, we both tend to grouse
Nights getting shorter, Haley needs to go out, what a pain to get out of bed
We no longer can simply open the door as she cannot find her way back
Perhaps another operation or more drugs will suffice, or maybe time’s not her friend
Don’t bring it up, we both simply pout
Now that Nature has decided for us and we think back on how it has been
The feedings, the cleanings, the mess, the expense, pale in the glow of her presence
She no longer is deaf, blind, halt, lame and old
She simply remains our best fur-balled friend!
