There’s an old, half blind dog lying on the porch. That old dog is me.
.
His daytime howl is common, almost a fixture in his home. He growls at shadows and charges falling, dry leaves as though they were a personal attack on himself and the dilapidated house he protects.
He can hardly see. He doesn’t hear clearly or process like others. This old dog with half an ear and legs born lame, feels so far removed from a living thing that even the softest touch can in an instant turn from intimacy to biting distrust.
He’s going to defend the house that has no roof, whose wooden floors were paced to splinters, and walls bore through while fighting thin air. He’ll protect the 8 inch thick iron door standing by the might of wild ivy, and spider webs as strong as a brick wall.
Just behind the layers of ivy and web is the staircase that leads to the hallway then the door, then the room of the master he will not abandon. She has left herself, let herself fall under a blanket of dust and pity.
Lavender and white daisies once filled hand painted vases. Green leaves of every kind of plant vined around the now dried up aquarium display. The frogs no longer sing and the night time antics of a cat fat with joy has ceased, it has ceased.
No more is the cry of the violin or the piano that answered it. Silenced is the voice of the cello who met the sweet scent of honeysuckle and flowed through the house like a feather in the wind. One feather, small, white, settled to the floor at the foot of her bed. Though years have passed since she has risen, it still hopes to again ride the wind.
The once mighty dog has detected no life in her. Nothing brings her heart to excite her feet that she might move from her bed now decayed. There, she is as rooted in waste as she was once rooted in fine soil. From deep freeze she’d awaken with grace then glide to shine beside sweet almonds and cherry blossom trees.
She knew her time, her place, and filled it well. But that’s been so long ago, time and times more, so that I wonder if I made it all up. In a pile of concrete and ash, she’s the master of my ghosts.
There’s an old, half blind dog lying on a porch.
.
April 18th, 2016
SUNDRIP – Art for Life