(an excerpt) . . . They say the world is won by those who let go. But this holding, this strain, this pulling up and up on the animal I love is my letting go. It says, or I hope it does, I know and I am not afraid. I will not leave you alone in your leaving. For seven years, my dog followed me. And now I follow him. And in following him, my straight paths have bent and bowed; every trail has wound into a labyrinth of scent and wonder. When I grow impatient or scared, and wha

I’m thinking of the buck that my dog chased yesterday—how I barely got a good look at ‘em: his brown and gray and branch of antler, disappearing into brown and gray and branch of creek-bed, dried up in the June heat. How my dog shouldn’t be able to run like that—not anymore— like a kite, I mean, tied by invisible string to a fleeing thing. His back legs, deaf to the neural conversation, picked up and propelled suddenly—across creek, and street, and hill. As a child’s toy was

I would send you a photo, but you should really see for yourself. She is not just a sight, but also a place--one where you can go, a whole atmosphere of pink and white; a city of barnacled branch; a monument of fullness and fragility. So much of her is already gone-- there on the grass, a mosaic of oxidizing petals--and yet, she is missing nothing. Her blooms are more outstretched this year than I've ever seen; her canopy, so vast that when we go for a walk, a tall friend say