This Poem was Submitted By: Mark Andrew Hislop On Date: 2015-05-31 19:21:08 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Requiem for Toki

It’s taken me almost a year to talk to you here, now you’ve gone from us: the buried thought was one that, till now, I just couldn’t bear.   I’m not even sure that I’ve loved a human like you, or like this. This human, who to two minds is split, in you was healed and moved.   Which desires fulfil as planned? Not this one, my wish to see stirred your tricks again, here, in each word. ‘Toki,’ I want to say, ‘Stand!’   For my reward, I’d have you stretched again in our hammock. Your best tricks always brought us closest, our absences made you wretched,   each day apart an agonising test seven days long in your domain. And how much longer when in pain alone, bleeding and unable to rest,   all at war with some random germ your small body could not growl away. Did your terrier soul, dicing the end of its term,   feel the warmth in your brother’s grip, feel his rushing you to the vet? As your failing heart lost its bet, dropping away despite the drip,   did, somehow, through the hurt and burn our love slip in? I pray you knew that had that door opened for us too, we’d’ve left with you, to not return   especially since coming back to this no-more-home without you was shattering in ways - who knew? - I thought reserved for my own pack.   Yet who was more my own apart from you? As you’d begun so you’d end, by digging things up, my beautiful friend: your passing unburied my heart.

Copyright © May 2015 Mark Andrew Hislop


This Poem was Critiqued By: Joe Gustin On Date: 2015-06-06 21:04:11
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
If ever the was poem that could move me to tears it would be this one. When you express loss you bring loss back to the reader. Thier loss yet your poem helps them navigate the pain


This Poem was Critiqued By: Medard Louis Lefevre Jr. On Date: 2015-06-05 22:46:11
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Wonderful write and subject. It is very moving and I am so sorry for your loss. I also love the interrupted rhythm (I'm not sure if that is a valid literary description)with the rhyming. Well and thoughtfully crafted. Thanks for the post. Medard
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