Leap up on morning strong hind legs, bound with assurance, dash through rain wet spring grass, bounce for the thrill of it, bounce to be highly admired, jump up for a full begging bowl, now bounce in thanks for the deliciousness of life.
Mama Ragni taught me this
kani woof chant while demonstrating the last bit at breakfasts in our first kitchen on Seventh Street. All the Collective was crowded in there: my two brothers who went away quickly, Mama Ragni, Papa Sunja, who also left too soon, Douglasina Pricklepuss or Miss D for dangerously disagreeable, Malka, briefly my feline puppy-sitter, two more
miri, rotund Yotur and gypsy Esmeralda, Baldey Broken-Beak, our resident curmudgeon crow shaman, shy Umalupani pocket parrot, two ring-necked parakeets whose names I’ve misplaced, and those self-proclaimed kitchen-perch kings, Birdo and Varna Macaw. We were a noisy bunch, always tangled up in each other’s doings. Only four of us still possess meat bodies fed by Hilary. Squawk, squawk, yap, and mew.
In those days my eyes saw what my ears heard. The cat that scampered, a
peruni child that hissed, my papa proudly prancing although restrained by a leash, caged Birdo declaiming articles of avian law. Flanked by parents, I went for happy-tail walks to grassy places where squirrels quickly abandoned tidbit searching to scurry up trees too branchy tall for us to leap at. In those dashing days my legs obeyed me.
Then you went away, Papa Sunja, to that home where you require only a transparent self, since this best can be carried in cloud, wind, and dream to visit meat body folk. I walked beside Mama Ragni, guarding her as her eyes slowly whitened with loss. Joel Bicycle, who fed me compliments, held one leash, Hilary, who knows human law, held the other. Brenda Biscuit, whom we dogs tasted before accepting her into our Collective, handed us treats for obeying that law.
Lord Sun and I had birthdays. Ragni smelt older. We moved from the capacious kitchen with gated dog room in which I had been born to one on Willis Avenue where wash sink, stove, table, chairs, cupboards, and food holding frig left little space for a dog basket. However we had a huge weed planted yard to explore and roofed dog patio behind the car house, which immediately was used for extra furniture and tubs of things rather than our car. Just one more Ragni birthday and I became an orphan. The sky in my bright eyes began to cloud, my heart to lie down in loneliness even though I was never alone. My dreams began to waken.
When you, young Ourai, ask why I spend hours prone in the pen that protects me from your enthusiastic company, it is because my eyes are closed to the life you see. What is invisible, scentless for you is sun vivid, smelling of gravy-rich memories for me. Dream eyes open, I play again the roll-me-over game with Malka, chase Papa Sunja around a bush, defy Douglasina’s jibes with a snarl, snatch tossed popcorn, juggle down beside soft-coated Mama Ragni. Who wouldn’t choose to stretch out with such dreams when standing erect on four legs has become a tiresome exercise. You, Laihainai Ourai, named for the Spring Wind that blows new energy into our green world and last year’s fur from your back, will, perhaps tomorrow, behold it grip Uli Var, sweeping her seventeen-year-old bones wrapped in age stained white fur off to where my new self will no longer have need of this dream life.
Uli Var
