Tag: Finbar

Haibun for the friend who never left

The NaPoWriMo prompt couldn’t be more appropriate.

My husband had a dream a few nights ago, more vivid than any dream he had ever had before. In the dream, he walked into the kitchen where I was preparing a meal. The children were in and out, talking. He stopped in surprise. Finbar was lying at my feet, long nose resting on his paws, his ears raised in recognition.
“I can see Finbar!”
I replied, “He’s always there, but only we can see him.”
“Not the children?”
I shook my head. “Only us.”
Husband crouched down and stroked him, and the touch ran through the dream and tingled in his waking fingers, the silky-smooth hair of his head and ears, the longer, coarser hair of his neck and flanks.
“He never left,” I said.

That same morning, I checked up on our application with the rescue association, for two friends that had touched our hearts, inseparable companions of misfortune. The reply was immediate. They’ll be on their way in the next few weeks. Finbar will have company soon.

Air is electric
in spring it buzzes with joy
even in sorrow.

Not forgetting

World galgo day yesterday. It’s inevitable.

Not forgetting

The house is full of ghosts,
the quiet kind, the gentle kind,
that float like doves
and whisper in our dreams.

I hear sounds in the night,
stretching in sleep,
nails clicking on the tiles,
padding down the hall.

I hear doors nosed open,
breath on my face,
just checking.
Yes, I’m still here.

I listen, staring at the rafters
as the silence rolls back,
and I promise,
We will always remember.

New morning new world

Un matin du nouveau monde

La rosée arrose les brins de rosier
j’ai planté là où tu dors.
Tu as toujours aimé les parfums des femmes.

Diamants brillent, coulent,
une rivière, ta couverture, de senteurs du matin.
Cours, grand cœur, dans les près du bonheur.

Morning in the new world

Dew drops and drips where the roses drink,
cuttings I planted where you sleep.
You always loved our women’s perfumes.

Diamonds glitter, flow, a river,
your blanket, of morning scents.
Run, great-heart, in the meadows of happiness.

No more (mon fils du vent)

Finbar died this morning.

No more (Mon fils du vent)

On the sill we stand with the world before,
sniffing the wind and the flying leaves
and the flying birds on the autumn wind.

The world’s before, gold and green,
gold in the flying autumn wind,
and life is flying in the golden wind.

In the world beyond the sill we’ll run no more,
we’ll run no more in the golden leaves,
with the rain in our faces and the world before.

Mon fils du vent (No more)

Sur le seuil, le monde devant,
on renifle le vent et les feuilles qui dansent
et les oiseaux qui dansent sur le vent d’automne.

Devant est le monde, doré et vert,
doré dans le vent qui vole en bourrasques
c’est la vie qui s’envole dans le vent doré.

Dans le monde devant le seuil, on ne courra plus,
on ne courra plus dans les feuilles d’or,
la pluie dans nos yeux et le monde devant.

Sleeping dogs

Sleeping dogs

Sleep, that knits up all those loosened threads
and ragged cares, repairs the body’s decline
and sets tired bones quiet, untroubled,
becomes a joy the young hound never knew.

He lies, racing in dreams those boundless fields,
soft breathing, paws twitching,
content to nose the sun on waking,
walk sedately through the dry grass

and remember other mad times,
green and hot-blooded times,
when heart, legs and supple spine
gave him the power of flight.

Update on the eye and the sighthound

Four trips to the hospital, another two programmed for my eye, but it seems to be responding to the treatment. We’ll know what the damage is by the end of October when the inflammation ought to have completely subsided.
Now I can concentrate on Finbar. He’s going downhill very fast now. He did everything too fast. I looked at the Oracle, and she told me what she sees. Not consolation or false hopes. Quel che sarà, sarà.

Even friends we love slip into the shadows,
little by little, one unsteady step after the next.
No imperious cry can stop them
when the ears no longer prick at the sound of their name.
No tongue has the words
to hold back the inevitable end.

We watch the blue above,
how it spreads its clouds
untroubled by the tears below,

and all the honey sweet scents are rank;
the day is red with impotent anger.

The spring will not come again.
There is no sweet in the bitter of this sleep,
only the sadness of never.

Another birthday

Photo taken at Christmas

Today is Finbar’s official birthday. A guesstimate by the vet when he was brought to the shelter, since nobody knows when he was born. For lunch he had his usual ‘soup’ of rice, lentils, carrots, tomatoes and potatoes with a portion of minced beef. Today, his soup had an added chicken stock cube, and as a birthday treat his meal was garnished with a boiled egg and a slice of Cantal cheese. You’re not fourteen every day.

Time flows in concentric circles or parallel tracks running at different speeds, the stars we see, the stars we don’t, light issuing from present darkness. For dogs, time races in the fast lane.

gloomy day
of false summer—leaves hang
waiting for the rain