Dog's Life - Poem

Cross Currents, Wntr, 2002 by J. Barrie Shepherd

The ice was soft and treacherous at dawn
this next to last day of the dying year.

We left the dog back home to keep
our daughter company over New Year's in
the apartment off Fifth Avenue, although
he did enjoy New Hampshire's wintered woods
one year ago, barking to his tiny heart's content
and charging off in New York Yorkshire terrier
glee through the deep snow when we forsook
the beaten track to seek a shortcut.
Trouble was, at just four pounds,
the snow was deeper than he was, and pretty soon
he vanished, trapped shivering and bewildered
at the icy foot of one of my steep boot prints.

Not all dogs face such problems
as we heard last night--seems that a doe,
trying to cross the lake, went through
with her front legs and, struggling, snapped them
so that she became an unexpected Christmas feast
for a passing coy-dog
(half-coyote) who, working from the rear,
consumed the poor demented creature piece
by living piece, reminding city-folks, as yet another
year bleeds into history, that there's a cruelty in things
will not be outrun, and that there must be easier ways
to die, all things considered.