Hershey

A dog and his boy walked the fields.
Where the dog once stepped there are no prints.
No mud framed paws to recollect.
the trace of his existence gone, except
a little hair between couch cushions.
Safe there where no vacuum can ever reach
marking the spot where he once chose to sleep.

His family named him for a candy bar.
The name was silly but it stuck.
He didn’t go fetch, roll over, or play dead.
(i)If you have legs, you can get it yourself(i)
he would grin and think but never say.
Like every good dog he loved the snow.
In a blizzard you could see him from miles off.

There are too many memories for written page.
There isn’t an adventure he wasn’t on.
we ran through forests; shoes, paws, and claws.
As a woodland explorer he was braver than me.
He’d run ahead on the trails but sit and wait.
His black tail would wag impatiently.
So smiling at him I’d laugh and say,
“Hershey, don’t wait up for me.”