SIMON
Who has never lost a pet
And cried at his demise,
Buried him beneath the soil
Under his last sunrise?
How many loves have I lost in life,
How many loves will I see no more,
Watching o’er the green green grass
Looking toward my own far shore?
His face is on my iPad screen;
I touch his image every day;
There’s no soft fur, no beating heart,
Just longing that won’t go away.
Lent is a precious discipline,
An exercise in loss and prayer,
For turning longing from the world,
Towards God whose being’s every where.
The little dog holds the sacred key,
He’s the scroll with the name divine;
Learn to read it with a love
That may no longer call him “mine.“
There’s nothing the self can claim but God;
Nothing the self can call its own;
Ordinate love is the only means
To reap that which was rightly sown.
Dead and gone my little dog,
Though memory keeps him lively,
Walking with me through the years
Or sleeping soft beside me.
