Her Ghostly Figure

What could be more puzzling than
the abrupt disappearance of a long-familiar
figure? A chasm of absence and a haunted
expectation of that figure appearing just
around the next corner follows that strange
absence. The cessation of existence is not
a concept readily conveyed to creatures
accustomed to greeting and cavorting
with one of their own, a calmly settling
figure whose dignity and demeanor set
the standard for all her admirers, large and
small who now, viewing her human companion
in the distance on a woodland trail where her
loping gait and white figure made her the
ghost of the forest beloved by all who there
ventured failed to alert her old friends that
she would no longer appear at that tall man's
side during their daily hikes in the urban forest.
His own aching acknowledgement of a warm
and trusting companion no longer there to
share pleasure and action surrenders time and
again to the delusion that she is still there
in the woods, snuffling about and soon to
rejoin him on their habitual circuit, and his
heart races, then lapses into the despair of his
loss. As her old friends sighting his arrival
rush to greet the one they anticipate will be
beside him, their anxiety somehow soothes
his, and he bends toward them comfortingly.