Shape Shifter

Shape Shifter is an homage to my sweet boy, Dexter, who died on June 17. He was, in all regards, a miraculous and wonderful dog, the sweetest and most tender soul I have known, a constant companion through good times and stormy ones for 12 years. In his last year, he had the great good fortune to live with me in the sweet little house on Boyd Avenue, where he cavorted with the backyard bullfrog and pond turtles, and from where he took so many lovely walks, savoring the scents of our many neighborhood dogs. No doubt his scent, and definitely his spirit, still lingers on many a Rockridge bush and flower.

Shape Shifter
  
I rode the high waves of grief 
atop your sleek strong black back
in a dream, holding tight to your collar
of dancing bears
your heart-shaped tags
making jangly night music
in the high-altitude wind.
 
Your long velvety ears touched

my face as we flew past galaxies
exposing the alabaster tunnels

through which you heard me plead
I will love you forever
And onward your legs with fine gold-fringed feathers
paddled as they did in your sweet dog dreams,
and gently set me down in a land
where the light was clear as crystal.
 
I must go, your deep brown eyes explained
though my legs stood wobbly on this new ground

and my heart broke open spilling

its love on cactus flowers

Now when on occasion I slip,
heavy with sorrow, below the waves,
you come, shape shifter,
as the little white dog prancing lakeside,
the backyard bullfrog,
the grocery boy who ran to me with a flower bouquet
when he heard you’d gone,
the tree that will grow from your bones.