I have a poem for that:
.
Down on the Road
My wife’s cat got killed down on the road the other day,
Expending all of its lives in a futile, final moment.
Probably, it’s better that it happened quickly,
We wouldn’t want the beast to live in torment.
We never got around to giving it a name,
Translating just as friendly sounds,
And we were just some folks it saw,
In making its appointed rounds.
The necessary burial detail fell to me,
I’ve had too much of practice in the task.
I’d just as soon it fall to someone else,
To let me shrug and wonder if she’d ask.
“So, have you seen the cat of late?
The poor thing must be ready to come round …”
“No, Dear. I haven’t seen it,
It’s probably in another part of town.”
The comfort of not knowing would be welcome.
Instead I have the dread of knowing truth;
That cats will go a-hurrying across a road,
As if the hounds of Hell pursueth.
Cats and highway vehicles don’t mix too well,
The feline wiring won’t admit,
That there are times and circumstances,
When cat-quick reflexes don’t fit.
And thus the grisly task inherits me.
Holding back my tears with stoic face,
I perform a silent duty to a former friend,
Caught between a wheel and a hard place.
Then walking back to put away the shovel,
I have a little time to give it thought.
Please let someone do the same for me,
When I have lost the final battle that I fought.
Just put me down where frost won’t make me shiver,
And cover with a blanket made of grass,
Amidst the roots which always smell so pleasant,
Of soda-scented sweetened sassafras.
NicknamedBob . . . March 19, 2008
Nice poem, Bob. I saw a dead coyote in a ditch recently. Could it have been as recently as this morning, when I was leaving the church parking lot at 6:00 a.m. with the Puerto Rican ladies? I think perhaps it was, and the dead coyote was next to the bamboo forest on the right.
Died of stupid.
Thank you.