For a Friend, Who Fell Asleep While Smoking
       

That huge black dog you owned for a few weeks—
Baloo, I think you called it, an homage
to Kipling, of all people—

I still dream about that dog, how it chewed off
the corner of your back porch,
freed itself to chase cars

all afternoon, barking, dragging its chain.
For fifteen years, why dream of old Baloo?
And why write of this now, when you are dead?

Why not write instead
of all those lily bulbs we planted one spring,
and you amidst those little crowns of color?

Or the stone steps you built
down to the brook behind the house,
through saplings gold against dark water?

Or the rebuilt porch, smelling of fresh lumber,
Baloo happy at his new farm,
running, running, free?

Why inseparable,
the joy and grief, link to link,
the chain connecting friendship to farewell?

Copyright © 2010 Jean LeBlanc All rights reserved
from At Any Moment
The Backwaters Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission