The ecstatic sun,
we sniffed, basked, lolled, ran, and walked —
we leaned towards it.

The endless beauty —
we found it every day,
paths led in and out.

Your nose off the path
in the cow vetch and grasses —
endless, proper work.

You’ve been gone four months,
I still see you out ahead
looking back at me.

Happily sleeping —
contentment with what had been,
your dreaming was sound.

The cold morning earth,
you went out to discover
all the night’s secrets.

Grief lives with me now,
alongside thinking of you,
I don’t forget it.

Spring shadows climbing
across fields and up trees —
your eyes like chestnuts.

Spring comes without you,
all of our ponds will crack, thaw,
I see you there, here.

The hope doesn’t go —
thinking of my life with you,
in these cold, hard days.

You sat on my foot
as we surveyed the bright day
and our place in it.

After a shared day,
I didn’t take it lightly —
any part of it.

These woods, full of birds,
we walked through in ice, mud, rain,
songs filling our ears.

Heat off the water,
your awareness of the life
moving around us.

It’s hard not to think
that you’re coming back someday,
warm under my hand.

In late November
I crawled into this dark place
filled with your absence.

Flush in the sun,
you watched the day coming in,
velvet ears shining.

The beavers still work
on these trees by the river —
I think of us here.

Spring winds have begun,
I keep a forest for you
of fresh bloomed lichen.

Content as ever
with bare-bones, early fall sun,
your familiar grass.