Hymn for an Aging Dog by Eira Needham

You pushed into life as I slept, 

flashed past in a vision, 

chasing a tabby away 

from our Braeburn tree. 

Four years on, I recognised 

your huge pirate patch 

and we rushed seventy miles

 to adopt you.

 I will not forget -

my husband lay prostrate in ripples, 

you howled ceaselessly until 

they heard further along the bank

and hotfoot it to drag him out.

May you drift away in reverie 

of bounding by the river with us 

before you paddle in to lap.

When death arrives, leash in hand 

may he gather you gently,                                            

not with a merciful potion, 

but dreaming

on your jungle green bed.

Eira Needham is a retired teacher, living in Birmingham UK, with her husband and greyhound, Maggie. Her other pets, leopard geckos and corn snakes, sometimes slither into a poem or two. She was Featured Writer in WestWard Quarterly and came first in Inter Board Poetry Contest, August 2017.