Your fresh contentment,
walked through every 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.

Your name in my mouth,
I still say it every day —
you loved being here.

In your habitat
among the wild wildflowers
deep in the meadow.

We found a carved heart
in the bark of a jack pine,
the ground, a loose web.

Made by white-tailed deer,
we walk the long river path,
see the way they see.

The soft breath of June,
mock orange in the summer,
lilacs in spring.

Farther along, will
I understand more than now,
live in the sunshine?

All of our summers
I offered you fresh bouquets,
earth and sky were ours.

Sunlight in the woods,
your fur, the color of snow,
shadow, and warm earth.

Your time here on earth,
your warm body on warm grass,
we shared the same loves.

Heart around your neck,
red metal with your name: MACK,
I say it today.

The meadow deer path
led us through soft wild carrot,
fog, clinging to it.

Snowflakes in your ears,
your warm bed ready at home,
no end to our luck.

(two months without you)