Precious Girl

If there ever comes a day when your bright eyes dim with pain,

I will carry you -

my precious girl,

carry you with the care you are due,

and place you in the safe embrace of home.

Where you will always be,

until the last hair has been washed away,

or pulled from the threads of the bed,

the blankets.

Until the sound of your paws has faded from the ears of the Gods,

and after.

You are one of a pair,

the bookends of my life -

and I can see the sand slip away,

from both of you, yes, but from you -

with more haste.

It slips down the sharp bones of your back,

and pools unseen by your brothers feet,

and I wonder what he will do without you.

What will I?

What can I do but carry him, too,

the way I have carried both of you,

and the way you have carried I?

Precious girl,

you are the centre of his world,

and together you form the core of mine.

Authors Note

I have been blessed to have two sighthounds, both from the same litter, since they were pups. The picture above is of them when they were still painfully young and was taken over ten years ago... but its how I see them in my minds eye. As they have gotten older the bitch, Tia (aka, Tia Maria, Tia-girl, Babs, and so on), has declined in health. She has diabetes and cataracts, she struggles to stay at a healthy weight, and yet she is still that puppy on the inside; bright, curious, and playful. This poem is about her, on the surface, but as I wrote I realized it's also about the dog, Bilbo, who has always been a nervous, gentle boy; he relies on her almost as much as me. I can't imagine how he will cope without her, and I think the anticipation of his pain as they get older is almost as stressful as knowing how much I'll miss her.

But she's still here, they both are, and for that I am thankful. So here's a recent picture of my greying, crochety babies to lift the mood a little and prove that while time marches on, nothing really changes.