“Coming Home” is a poem I wrote about the grief that comes when a beloved dog dies
Coming Home
Between the mountains and the sea
I carry him home
the sandstone light
cuts the world into halves
this ending
when death has come
whispering no more this love
for me
the only certainty
for fifteen years
the everyday ecstasy coming home
I fell to my knees at his laugh
I remember writing poems
about the idea of love
while his face burrowed into my arms.
So how will I not remember
to walk with him by the sea look for him in the garden
gather the tasty bits from the table?
How will I welcome
the great silence of the earth
without his footsteps his body like the wind
tunnelling though the grass ?
Tell me, how do I leave you here to run on your own forever?