About Jodey Bateman Pablo Neruda Translations by Jodey Bateman Contributors Abuela Musica Jalapeno Peppers Children’s Page Finder Submissions

Dog Sonnet I (the burial) | Poem

DOG SONNET I (the burial)  by Mike Glover
 
You have slept in the frozen earth for a month now
In your rocky grave, the snow has fallen over your hearth
Your eternal sleep, where I took my ax to the roots and blistered
My hands and the sting of tears opened the dismal gates of eternity,
 I buried you.

The myth of ghosts died today,
Why on earth would souls remain to watch houses fall upon their foundations and
Civilizations consume themselves,
From the inside out? if ever there was a reason for a ghost
You would be here with me now.

At first it was like a dream when you died all spaced out and spastic like
Those crazy, buzzing grasshoppers in the meadows in summer,
You used to snap at them as they launched
In their haphazard screaching, maddening flights they became
Silent and invisible upon landing.

You laid down at my feet in your last seizure, my hand was on your ribs
When you took your last breath, and then the time stopped, you took three
painful gasps
reflexive, the dying brain refusing
But then you were still, and after a period of shock and wonder,
We wrapped you in a sheet and carried you to the cool porch.

It was hard work but I guess grave digging is not supposed to be easy,
I worried, and cried, and pulled up ten pound rocks and made a pile beside the
hole
Thinking about how temporary this all is, I dug deeper and deeper, then when
the time had come
We put you in the moist October earth
Forever.

Mike's menu   /  Moongate