Carlo

Azalea had another long seizure today. She was weak and panting after, but we let her outside where she walked and stumbled around the yard. We picked raspberries and kept an eye on her. After a seizure she does goofy things like sneak into the shed with the lawnmower where she gets stuck. Her back legs are so weak, getting her back inside the house involved me holding her back legs up with my fleece under her belly and Lily luring her with a bone, which she snapped at "like a croc" per Lily who has been watching a DVD of Crocodile Hunter this summer.

Here is a poem my mother gave my by Seamus Heaney the Irish poet, about his dog, Carlo.

Carlo
I'm afraid the millennium
means nothing to Carlo.
My heart aches for him

with one eye gone blind
and his whole body slowed.
His bark is still loud

but not as aggressive,
not that rampant "Fuck off"
of a dog in his prime,

hurling and barrelling
round the back yard.
I undervalued

all that at the time
his just being there
like a bolt from the garden,

woofing and panting
or worrying plastic
bottles or bags,

our mad perforator
and show-off performer.
He once bit a writer

or better say nipped--
regrettably "nipped"
has to be the mot just.

He went wild at jet trails.
You'd be conscious of nothing
but sunbeat and lawn-heat

when he's work up a snarl
like a slow Cape Canaveral
burn-up and lift-off,

then launch himself into barking
into the blue.
Then quit and come running

like a form of forgiveness.
Now I'd like to relive
those years of aloofness,

am sorry I didn't
give and take more
notice and pleasure

each hour of each day.
I'd stroke him, of course,
at night and at times

when he didn't expect it,
my sudden meltdowns
of hapless affection,

but mostly the case
was live and let live.
Which is hardly enough.

The film in his eye,
his blindsided trot
reminds me of that.

Seamus Heaney