Elegy for Piper by Taylor Graham

In the last days she was leaving

into the place old dogs go,

when love of master's hand and the daily

joys of walk and dinner bowl

become forgetful; 

when without wishing the ears

muffle over master's voice,

and curtains silver-glaze the eyes against 

daylight - painless 

but wandering from her life

into a new one without us. Solitary

unless every cell 

of fading body feels at its walls

the tremor - the soft pad 

of others on the far side, their heads 

lifted to an unworldly 

breeze that already 

bears to them her approaching, 

her remembered scent. 

Taylor Graham, California, USA