Pebbles & Bern

This morning I saw my dog

using my kitten as a pillow —

Bern’s massive head on Pebbles

who didn’t seem to mind.

Bern isn’t getting any younger,

he gets stiff hips in the morning

and has lighter hair around his eyes.

Science says one year for dogs

is seven years for us;

it also says their body systems

have factored in their own mortality.

But we haven’t. I haven’t.

One week for me, seven for Bern.

— it’s even worse for Pebbles:

twenty-one years taken the first two,

time is ruthless for a kitten.

I spend my days bummed out,

sometimes not even leaving the house,

just letting Bern out in the yard,

just letting time go by for lack

of knowing what to do with it.

While Pebbles sleeps all day long.

I have to get out of that rut,

not just for me, but for them too —

time passes differently for everyone,

but it matters for all of us.

Factoring in my own mortality.

So I’ll play with them. Go out, rain and shine.

Bern needs to go run after squirrels,

— he used to when he was a teen —

have Pebbles chase a fake mouse on a string,

make the day matter, make it unpredictable.

Get a tennis ball, grab a piece of yarn,

goof around, cuddle, nap in front of the telly,

make dinner for all three of us,

so that when we all go to sleep

our dreams make us twitch and bark,

paw and run, huff and purr.

Time that matters isn’t time anymore.

How are the five minutes of a mayfly’s like?

A day in the life of a Greenland shark?

Different, yet the same, I guess.

There’s no time in the life of a dog to get bored,

yet sometimes that’s we like doing

when boredom matters

more than time.

Pebbles just woke up.