to the Dogs

To return to the sensitive 

letting the numbness of cold thaw away

The pain and pangs of feeling

a sloughing of callousness

Settle a warm kindle

place your hands where light can see them

those mittens on the kittens

large eyes and the dancing orange about the crucible

alive but its mouth silently opens

cat calls and rolling tender

tinder, like the beginning 

brought forth by day

the amnesia of sleeping birth

held in mysteries of photographic memories

not of your owning, never of your taking

an inheritance, a heredity we share

sympathies to mysteries

fantasies to realities

the games of creation

the order of chaos

I watched as she receded in the period known vulgarly as death. She went retrograde, descalating in complexity down to child, infant, stasis, then essence. The images flashed as memories, hauntings, pleasures, gifts, and sorrows. All transitions blurring. To hang on to pain and suffering for the dying inner child to deal with, is cruelty. May I be forgiven for what I have done, and given strength to tend all that is left to do. Preparing not for death, but blessing the essence as it transforms back into the gift.