The Awareness Of Being

Her primary faculties have
inexorably, over the passing
years, drained and diminished.
Her sight and her hearing have
fled with the years, her memory
defaulted, her brain's reasoning
dissolved into steep chaos and
obviously distressed confusion.

What remains is of comfort to her,
and to us. Residual recognition of
her favoured resting places remain
a vestigial reminder to her, those
places hers, and hers alone. She
still succumbs to the temptations
of treats to enhance her reluctance
to eat, but once engaged proceeds
to satiation. Yet not an ounce is
gained on her spare, bony frame.

She forgets to lap at water and to
ensure hydration must be led to it;
like a horse she can be led, but only
she decides when to drink. She must
be guided by leash and harness on
woodland trails for confusion readily
advances without that assurance.
And when she halts and gazes
sightlessly she must be lifted and
carried under the forest canopy.

Her memory of the interior
parameters of her home of almost
two decades no longer intact, she
will lurch from one impediment or
barrier to another, incapable of
heeding. When cold arrives she
must have cover to shelter her
newly temperature-sensitive body.

Asleep in her place at night we
hear her dream and whimper. We
recall her as a shy, standoffish young
pup given to occasional raving
enthusiasms and we wonder now
what she in her final time recalls
to give her sleeping distress;
perhaps premonition of the long
sleep from which no awareness
of being is capable of awakening.