We Have A Secret

We have a secret, you and I
that no one else shall know,
for who but I can see you lie
each night in fire glow?
And who but I can reach my hand
before we go to bed
and feel the living warmth of you
and touch your silken head?
And only I walk woodland paths
and see ahead of me,
your small form racing with the wind
so young again, and free.
And only I can see you swim
in every brook I pass
and when I call, no one but I
can see the bending grass.

Author Unknown

To Love Again

Oh what unhappy twist of fate  
Has brought you homeless to my gate,
The gate where once another stood
To beg for shelter warmth and food?
 
For from that day I ceased to be
The master of my destiny,
While she, with purr and velvet paw
Became within my house the law.
 
She scratched the furniture and shed
And claimed the middle of my bed,
She ruled in arrogance and pride
And broke my heart the day she died.
 
So if you really think, oh cat
I'd willingly relive all that,
Because you come forlorn and thin
Well don't just stand there - come on in!

Author unknown

I AM NOT THERE

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

Author unknown

WALK WITH AN OLD DOG 

  Because you will not be forever, 
Hope against time though I may, 
Paint your picture in my memory, 
Eyes blue with age, muzzle gone gray. 

Because you walked with me in Springtime, 
Puppy-clumsy, running free. 
As you grew, we grew together-- 
You became a part of me. 

Because I shared with you my sorrows, 
Not understanding-- simply there. 
Often spurring me to laughter-- 
My friend, you know how much I care. 

Because the years have slowed your fleetness, 
Though your spirit still is strong. 
I promise I will take more time now, 
So that you can go along. 

Because you do not fear the future, 
Living only in the now, 
I draw strength from your example-- 
Yet time keeps slipping by somehow. 

Because the day will soon be coming 
When I will no longer see 
You rise to greet me - but in memory 
You will always walk with me. 

 Gayl Jokiel

A Place in our Hearts

They will not go quietly,
the dogs who've shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still make us think
we hear a barking at the door.
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor.
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be.
And, sometime, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them...
and always will. 

Linda Barnes

We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry tree strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a dog.

Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavored bone, or lifted his head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked, and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing is lost - if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

There is one best place to bury a dog. If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call - come to you over the grim, dim frontier of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel, they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he belongs there. People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog.

Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing. The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.