BACK TO : PETTING ZOO
The LAST GIFT (2 years later)
I buried her in a small clear space in the trees.... no marker
I kneel and place flowers....
and memories overwelm me....
I sat there, her head in my arms, and for a while
it was as if time stood still. Magic happened, perhaps
because of the planets alignment on winters dawn
or perhaps born of imagination and grief.
I looked into the beasts dying eyes,
I said "I am sorry, there is nothing I can do"
She stood up and looked at me and said
"Do not be sad, let me comfort you"
Time stood still, for houres.
I said
"thank you for so many years of service"
The beast said,
"It is who I am.
I can be no other way,
You captured me,
gave me love and compassion
...so long ago
and in return I gave you my heart"
"...I am your horse"
She was cold, and I smelled death
and felt its icy pull. She was dead, supposed
to be dead houres ago yet my unwilling to
let her go and release her heart kept her
there and I came to realized this.
She at last said " I must go, it is time"
As if in a trance she tried to exit the
closed gate.
I felt deaths pull too and knew it true
and longed to travel that same path only she
could see. It was not ment for those living
to feel before it is time, Perhaps one last
gift, a product of our bonding so long ago,
or a preminition from death who surly lurked
there, but it still haunts me, I still feel it.
It chills me to the bone while drawing me...
I told her "I have always been there to
to protect thee but I can not where you go"
She looked at me and said "I am sorry, I
can not comfort you longer, I must go now"
She was dead, ment to die houres ago and with
this realization I suppose I gave her leave and the
magic ended.
The beast fell and told me life was too much a
burden and so I took it from her and perhaps
will carry that burden till I too die.
I buried her body in a shallow hand dug grave
the next day and ponder often on her last
gift and what it means.
The cycle of seasons have come and gone twice...
Time heals, her touch, her warm breath, has
faded yet will always haunt.
I feel our bond still, made so long ago,
magic cast with unknown terms, payment I still
await to come due I will willingly pay.
Death waiting... I suppose death can afford to
be patient, all will come in the end.
...and the path i feel pulling at me, is it
my imagination borne of grief because it feels
all too real.
I do now think there is alot more than can been
seen and measured and perhaps the gods be all too real
and one must be carfull what one asks of them.
Yet I light a candle on eponas shrine and thank
her for her gifts, thou they be heavy to bare.
This is what I have chosen when I dared to open
my heart to Eponas children, the bond that binds after
death and the payment demanded.