Michael Ondaatje: Stella

This morning before daybreak a thunderstorm

In the last hours before her death
her enemies came. A raccoon, that storm,
the FedEx truck manned by a gentle woman
who’d recently lost her own dog.
Considering the woman who was usually her enemy
our dog perhaps read the grief in her,

just as, the night before, a raccoon
along the fence backlit by moonlight
watched our dog drink noisily from the fountain,
her thin body so thirsty! never sensing
the creature who continued
along the fence and disappeared

So many things to learn, keep on learning
during these last days, watching us
with an awareness that we perhaps
have not learned but shall

Now we are less. How do we become more?

How to die courteous and beautiful
protecting her house, guarding our door