Wordless Love – the Sweet Experience of Loving an Old Dog

Sweet Jackson, the old black dog, asleep by the fire

Wordless Love

in this light-shortened night

I draw near the fire

with my old black dog.

neither of us

can keep our feet warm

anymore.

I place my hand on his ribs

and watch them rise and fall,

feel the beating

of his precious heart,

and know then the sharp dread

of the beginning of ending

of dissolution, of the warm

moist breath of emptiness,

of loss, of the exquisite fragility

of this simple, bottomless

wordless love

© 2021 jafink/oldbonesnewsnow.com

2 thoughts on “Wordless Love – the Sweet Experience of Loving an Old Dog

    • this came from an evening when I put my hand on his too skinny chest as he slept and became acutely aware of his, and by immediate extension, my own mortality. sweet sadness

Leave a Reply