Mornings we were out
tracking the hidden lives of
nighttime animals.

You’ve been gone three months,
I live in different time,
I’m here or here or...

The great piece of turf —
dandelions and grasses,
and our luck, our luck.

Picking up the scent
of brown-eyed Susan, bee balm —
only gentle steps.

Sometimes, 3 AM,
I wake in another time
and you’re still here.

Just back from a walk,
listening for orioles
or some other luck.

I have your collar,
your blanket and velvet bone,
somehow, still have you.

I turn to the sun
and still read poems out loud
as I did for you.

You were the center
of every greening spring day,
each sky assembling.

Stardust to stardust,
velvet February snow,
you’re back on your trail.

You loved your people,
on a sunny day in spring —
soft-eyed and ears flat.

Sun shines on your spots —
every place that you felt safe
your long happy life.

Your fresh contentment,
walked through each deep forest,
filled up every room.

You, at the center —
the heartbreaking commonplace
that’s now empty, gone.

C.S. Lewis (“…tiny, heartbreaking commonplace”)

In these cold shadows
I try each day to make sense
of where you are now.

The pleasure of life,
being alive in spring grass,
the past forgotten.

The door freezing shut
at dawn sounded like footsteps,
I thought it was you.

Your very being,
warm, lying in the cool grass —
Mack, where are you now?

February gloom —
these days, living with this grief,
it’s its own sad thing.

You picked up their scent,
wild lily of the valley,
just out, of the earth.