Miss Cajun Okie

*this is for my dog, the last one of the gang I grew up with...she's so old now, and every time I come home she looks so much worse... she's got a sort of canine alzhiemer's ... mum says she won't live to see spring... I sobbed my eyes out last night, sitting there running my hands over her head and shoulders in endless, repetitive circles... then my mother cried with me, and told me not to let Okie see that I was upset... and then I went upstairs and wrote this...(btw, “red and blue days” is reference to the plains Indians [Sioux, Navajo, and Apache] belief that each direction is not only associated with a color but also with a stage of life; red and blue are associated with the east and south, also associated with youth) *

I know of an old, proud dog who doesn't know me anymore
A lady for whom the end of wind-racing days draws nigh
One who gazes upon me with rheumy eyes,
Eyes that speak of wisdom she can no longer grasp
I remember that those eyes once danced
I remember when that long muzzle once grinned
She looks up at me, lost…
I remember...
...pain seizes my chest

I know of an old, proud dog who can no longer climb the stairs
A tottering, speckled, thin legged racer
Who must at times be carried
I remember her in the summertime of her life,
The red and blue days...
Twirling and prancing as if fire ran in her veins

I know of an old, proud dog who has seen her companions die,
One by one...
And who does not understand why her human puppies leave,
Time and again...
I remember her laughing,
Her big heart singing of speed
I remember...
...and I wish to lie down beside her,
And take her death within me
I wish to have that youngling back...
...To have this old, proud dog live forever in my mother's house

I mourn…
…why must we live so long?