Mother Returns To Live Within My Dog
I dreamt I saw my sweet departed Saint
My mother, like Gullveig, returned to me;
Whose life, unlike her peer, did bless my See
Returned from death to us but white as paint.
She grasped me by the hand and smiled a faint
But gracious smile, so that I surely knew
She would not ever leave again, or feign
Departure from my longing heart’s great pain.
Then entered in my dog, beloved Hennessy
My mother picked her up and kissed her face
While Henny gazed so brown and blessedly.
Their correspondence was a coup de grace:
She vanished in a trice, and in her clemency
Her soul absorbed the dog, and in her place
She left me with my friend, her legacy.
(With thanks to John Milton, his Sonnet 23)
