“As music is present yet you can’t touch it”

“As music is present yet you can’t touch it” – this line from Pulitzer prize winning poet Mary Oliver’s poem The First Time Percy Came Back which remembers her beloved dog Percy  jumped from the page this morning as I was looking for comfort in her exquisite writing.

“Percy,” I cried out, and reached to him –

those white curls –

but he was unreachable. As music

is present yet you can’t touch it.

I dreamed of Susie-Belle last night, and she came to me. I knew she would if I called. It was comforting. Today is a hard, sad day and I needed this comfort, for my friend Kathleen is saying good bye to her treasured, much loved dog Juno. Yesterday they shared a perfect last day together: quiet walks in their favourite places, sausages and pieces of chicken fed at will, cuddles and a deep companionship that’s come from true and loving hearts which first connected three years ago.

It’s a tragic, painful time when we need to let our friends go, the pain for us is physical, even though we know for them it is the right time, the kindest and last thing we can do for them. Although the dreadful ache we feel diminishes with time, the love for our missing friends doesn’t.

For Kathleen, Juno’s illness has been sudden, and shocking and no words any of us have can take away the agony of today. And they haven’t had long enough on this earth together, but what they’ve had has been unique and deeply loving. In time, tears will be replaced by smiles and laughter as we remember Juno’s funny antics and full, amusing character.

I know Juno will come back, as Susie-Belle does to me, as Mary Oliver’s poem so eloquently celebrates:

The first time Percy came back

he was not sailing on a cloud.

He was loping along the sand as though

he had come a great way.

“Percy,” I cried out, and reached to him –

those white curls –

but he was unreachable. As music

is present yet you can’t touch it.

“Yes, it’s all different,” he said.

“You’re going to be very surprised.”

But I wasn’t thinking of that. I only

wanted to hold him. “Listen,” he said,

“I miss that too.

And now you’ll be telling stories

of my coming back

and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true,

but they’ll be real.”

And then, as he used to, he said, “Let’s go!”

And we walked down the beach together.