Friday, December 11, 2009

Open For Business

I love my dogs. All 3 of them. And even though they are forbidden to ever leave me, I know that sooner or later they will--I'm just hoping it's later. There's an area in the back of our property that I designated as the pet cemetery and I didn't expect to break ground in it for several more years. But last month, my sister called early one Saturday morning to tell me that her boyfriend's cat had died and they were about to pull in my driveway. I rolled out of bed, started the coffee maker, and went into the garage to search for a shovel. Studley was in a box along with the ashes of Billy's other cat, Nub. And they became the first occupants of the pet cemetery.

I've been bad about keeping up with Poetry Fridays but I wanted to share this poem by Sue Ellen Thompson. It's one of my favorites.

No Children, No Pets by Sue Ellen Thompson

I bring the cat’s body home from the vet’s
in a running-shoe box held shut
with elastic bands. Then I clean
the corners where she has eaten and
slept, scrubbing the hard bits of food
from the baseboard, dumping the litter
and blasting the pan with a hose. The plastic
dishes I hide in the basement, the pee-
soaked towel I put in the trash. I put
the catnip mouse in the box and I put
the box away, too, in a deep
dirt drawer in the earth...


(Click to read more)


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8 comments:

  1. That's sweet... and I really like the cemetery gravestone.

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  2. I like the gravestone, too! That poem is sad... but I liked it.

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  3. Hope all the dogs don't mind that there's a cat already there!

    Thanks again. I don't know what else we would have done.

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  4. That's very sad but sweet that you've made a special resting place for your loved pet friends. :)

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  5. very Sweet, I liked the poem too!
    Can I bring Chester up there when he dies, and bury him in the Cat part???

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  6. Oh, how sad. Losing a pet is AWFUL! We lost our golden retriever a couple yrs back and it's still hard to think about.

    Very nice of you to offer that plot of land for burials. Very nice!

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  7. i have a very serious problem for you....a male dog and cat always outside until it hit in ephraim last week minus 28 degrees....so we had them both in th house and wow the dog duke wants to tear the car's head off....how do we get them to tolerate each other cause the wife wants them in the house all winter or if you don't have an answer can you make a spot in your cemetary for muy soon to be deceased cat

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  8. So sad to hear but glad you have found a way to memorialize your pets.

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Thanks for commenting!