if i painted a picture of my heart it would be black
in the middle of the picture is a dog-can you see him?
he’s the one curled up on the floor, the black one
with cool fur like jim morrison’s hair. in that position
you can’t see the rest of him-the gleaming white teeth,
the lean healthy build, the floppy brown-tint ears, the
handsome, intelligent face not unlike that of a wolf.
the problem is, if you look at this picture tomorrow,
it will have a big hole in it the shape of that curled up dog.
and I’m not feeling so good about that.
he’s a foster dog of leela’s, named for the dog star,
or for padfoot, the fugitive mentor of harry potter,
sirius black. the wise ones say that a star is a soul.
the soul of the dog star reminds me of lage.
he’s been gone for awhile but with padding feet
he’s crept back into my life and stolen my heart away.
he sits by my side and lets me stroke his face and fur,
sitting regally, nobly, with dignity, like lage.
we take long rambling hikes through hemlock forests
on steep mountainsides, flying over their crests and into
far valleys on long desperate legs with lives of their own.
he loves to play, lunging ferociously at his toy, or maybe
even at corky’s leg. he never needed house training,
never needed obedience-he knew the score right from
the start. i’m not so much sad for me as I am for him.
i hope he’s as happy in his
new home as he is here, where he gets to
hike through the hemispheres every single day
and has corky and louise to complete the pack.
the cristos better treat him right.
he deserves it. he’s a prince of dogs,
royally descended from the great king lage.
play on, Sirius, until we meet again
on the crest of a faroff misty mountain.