Brandy '78

Brandy '78

How often it was how I spoke with my oldest friend,
whom I can feel even now as I've often felt then -
the smooth fur about your furrowed face
eyebrows of tan, tail of white tippet swish
Through the pasture'd wood we'd race
or lie together in the plain, powdered drifts
certainly we'd chase those wraiths
that ran away senselessly and writhed
beneath the villanous moon, its waxing lunacy tithed
which taxed our very breaths wafting vaporous
through the pine of needled floor, of dark-branched walls -
and roofs of fir to keep warm our spirits.
Kindred souls 'neath the beams of million moonstruck blows
fusilladed, cannonaded, furtively surprised -
crystalline feathered ghosts canonized
by us, lunar worshippers, among pines pantheonic
above their fellow trees icily platonic
for as we had just slain the flight of darkened souls
with gustnadoes of ghastly swirl-by-night shoals
that rose, risen...
twister of watery, snowy derison,
and with my imagined sword thrust to its hilt
and with single set of fangs sank into its crystalline wing,
rejoice, o victors! - to the spoil of battles won!
and with gleeful, melting muzzle of snow for him
we set off for the hidebound, the horizon grim ...

Know this in my childhood past
that what captured them, captivated us.
We - neither alpha nor omega.
We - neither cause nor effect.
We - not dog, not Master ...
just us-
undefinable, undeniable, indefensible, incomprehensible
two and four-legged tag team abreast
in the snow.

Remove my gloves - as we lay here in this needled hushed glen,
across from the onyx stream that gargled its gurgled zen
of million words for this rock-strewn, mossed-in den
belly down, drinking deeply, nearly dip-low-matically
from the lifegiver of burgled snow
stolen from the heights of the nearby Vermont hills
and from the airy heirs of their peers, of Ethan Allen will.
And race on we did, loping with broad jumps over earthen log,
of leaping high above what was shrouded below - an unknown in fog ...
Hounded us to leave our senses,
and upon a meetingplace we came to a trail
of hooves that perplexed him to oversee.
A voice called him back ... return this very instant!
and border collie reunited with country son,
omega with alpha
at that most brief of moments ...

just us.

Exhausted! Thrilled without word! We bask
in and atop the spiritually fertile, insulating blanket
of deriving and compiling snow!
Tongue lolling, ribcage roiling, he panted
what he had called out to me ... out there...
Him: "Fast Creature! Glowing Orb! Wet!
I: "Deer! Moon! River"!!!!

And to those that think it strange that
omega speaks to alpha of things seen first
out-of-turn-as-it-may-seem ...
isn't it written that -
" The last shall be first, and the first shall be last " -
and through his beautiful, most solemn countenance I knew what it was
that he wanted to say with all his heart, soul and might.

Together we smiled through our eyes
Together we smiled through our senses
and together we smile ... always....
through ourselves ...

And I had to leave.
My worlds became defined by what could be
and what became of what would be was
also to be our final parting.
Brother led you to Death's door, so solemnly there.

You felt no pain, I was told and it was explained.
To say goodbye ... for now.
And for now,
I ...
I have your world ...
forevermore