Noticing xcvi - Ted Kooser's "Death of a Dog"

Jett

A friend of mine learned this morning that her "young," 9-year-old dog, Jett—as opposed to her blind, deaf, stiffly arthritic dog of 16, Chance, who nevertheless still wags his tail and seems happy to greet each day—has cancer and will only live a short while longer, perhaps three weeks, perhaps as little as one more day. The news was unexpected. Which makes it that much harder to bear.

Rarely a day goes by that I'm not, if only fleetingly, aware that our beloved Milo, who turned nine in October, will not be with us forever. It's the saddest thing, that we lose these creatures who are so very dear to us, who are so loyal and devoted.

Today I decided to take the easy way out with a blog post and present a poem. Ted Kooser sprang into my head. I scanned the titles at the Poetry Foundation, and there was this. Seemed fitting today. For Jett.

Death of a Dog

The next morning I felt that our house
had been lifted away from its foundation
during the night, and was now adrift,
though so heavy it drew a foot or more
of whatever was buoying it up, not water
but something cold and thin and clear,
silence riffling its surface as the house
began to turn on a strengthening current,
leaving, taking my wife and me with it,
and though it had never occurred
to me until that moment, for fifteen years
our dog had held down what we had
by pressing his belly to the floors,
his front paws, too, and with him gone
the house had begun to float out onto
emptiness, no solid ground in sight.