Casa Robino

A month or so ago, we were walking back out down the home straight. His enthusiasm had returned and he had began to be interested in everything once more. He approached a plant and sniffed it deep and turned back to look at me. He made the sound of a half yawn and I gazed at him, astonished.  It was the sound he made when he was real happy and content. It was the cry he would sometimes form when he would begin to smell the sea air.I had forgotten this sound.I will bottle it inside of me forever. If I am asked to describe something good and true in this world, this will be one of the things that I describe.Simon returned on the weekend, my dear brother. On Sunday morning I came in from the tent to find them sleeping together in the kitchen. When Simon returned to Bath, he began to fall apart fast quickly, as if he'd been storing all of his strength to say goodbye. A day after he departed, he could barely get out of his bed. He pushed his snout into my closed hand and kept it there for a long while. Sim rang and asked to talk to him, to tell him goodbye. Kudo breathed deeply and sighed into the telephone.The idea of trapping things that were once wild into small rooms is wretched to me. But to believe in things that are beyond ourselves.For hours in the rain, I dug the hole out past midnight. I could never dig holes. But this one came fast until I reached the roof tiles. There is another world underneath this one. I reach the chimney and decide it's deep enough. Out in the middle of the vegetable patch. One day there will be fruit tree there, nourished by him.  I had dreaded carrying him out there after he'd stopped breathing but the man with the needle did it as he was wrapped in his basket blanket. We lit candles and they stayed lit even through the rain. The lion with a squeak in his head went down with him along with the plastic bone chewed to bits. He was a great dog, my mother murmurs. When it comes to me, my voice keeps breaking off when I start to read out a small piece I'd written. There were times when it seemed like I had no one there, but you were. Thank you. We love you. Rest well, at last. We'll always remember you, man.