Surely She Dreams

She dreams, surely she dreams
hazy memories. She must do so,
how else decipher those interminable
pauses of immobile intensity when
her constant pacing is arrested
and she stands, alert to some vision
passing before her unseeing eyes. At
night, asleep, she dreams, whimpers.

When this small black companion
is walked alongside us on forest trails
she is securely harnessed and a lead,
from us to her, directs her safely
along pathways she no longer recognizes
by absent sight or long-term memory.
When she wanders a gentle tug directs.

As we slowly progress on these daily
excursions she halts, turns her head
to sightlessly regard the scene behind.
What does she see? The past, thoughts
of her young days in the freshness
and delight of early discovery?

She proceeds through the tug, for she
cannot hear our long-familiar, now
puzzlingly-absent voices. Our communion
is through touch, so she knows we are there,
with her, and she responds. Then she stops,
looks reflectively behind again, seeing
there another space in time now past.