The spring tides, always high, are higher now, swallowing
the boards, the pilings place-markers for memory, for warnings.

There in the small bit of damp cove we once found a dog, drowned,
a Weimaraner, its tail docked, pelt like burnished pewter.

Someone tried to tell us it was just a fox, as if trying to protect us
from something. As if a fox was less tragic than a dog.

As if wildness was a lesser thing.

The path makes a small climb past the cliffs, the persimmon trees,
to the empty pasture where once the old thoroughbred stood
with his broken leg, waiting for us to come and end the waiting;

orb of its kind eye looked at us as if its sorrow was something it didn’t want
us to bear, looked at us the way we look at a parent as they cross.

Next summer when the tides are low, the dock dry and lichen painted,
pastures un-grazed grown tall—the land will continue to empty and fill

despite our small passages.