THE DOGGIE'S DIRGE
A dog’s life is forlorn, dear God,
Though we may leap and sport:
Our sorrow - and it breaks our hearts-
Is that our lives are short.
“A dog’s best friend is man,” they say,
“Or woman - saint or knave.”
So dogs long to escort those lives
From childhood to the grave.
We live too fast! At three months old
We match a child of four.
At one, we’re grown-up as our friend
Who is sixteen or more.
In just two years we’re as
mature
As humans twenty-five.
And when we’re ten, we’re
getting old
And lucky to survive.
Please hear our prayer, forgive our need
To leap and bark and snort,
For we must cram a world of love
Into a life so short!
from the forthcoming book Prayers of 100 Animals A to Z, by William Cleary
TOP
|
