The Fresh Air Faded,  09/18/2011

The fresh air faded quickly as we entered the

nursing home. I inhaled and reached for assurance —

my ever present inhaler in my left front pant’s pocket.

A warm, dry Indian summer day and bright

sunshine turned into sticky, stale air and fluorescent gray.

We walked the gauntlet of dozing, drooling, slumping

people in wheelchairs.

They lined both sides of the hall.  Nurses and aids

dodged and scurried,

bottles, needles and pans in rubbered hands.

We ducked into the room.  She sat eagerly looking

in our direction.

“Would you like to visit here or should we go

somewhere else?” I asked.

“Oh, let’s go down the hall.”  On the way out she

pointed back to her roommate and whispered,

“We’ll have more privacy. It is nice to see you two,

but where is that beautiful Chocolate Lab?”

“He’s in the car. Shall I get him?”

“Get him? I’ve been waiting all day to see Boomer.”

My wife ushered Ruth the rest of the way and I

went for the dog. He jumped eagerly out of the car;

I held his leash tightly.  He tugged this way and that.

I let him take a pee.  We rode up on the elevator.

He sat so quietly. He knew the routine.  The door

opened and he pulled me into the hall.

“Boomer,” she called.

He headed in her direction and I let the leash go.

He wrapped it around the wheelchair.  Kisses, kisses,

kisses. Then he settled down and lay

beside the wheels. Old men hobbled by and

asked about the dog.  “Just keep on going,”

Ruth instructed them.  They frowned; she

looked at us and shook her head. “If they stop,

they’ll talk forever.” We sat in the quiet and then

talked about her cancer. On the way back to her

room with the dog along, the dozing, drooling

people who lined the hall on both sides looked

up and some of them smiled…at the dog.

“This is my pastor and his wife and Boomer.

They have come to visit me.”

I sit on the small, open air, cedar porch

leaving the door into the great room open

to hear the golf tournament.

My wife sits inside under a lamp sewing one of

her sculptures on a quiet Sunday

afternoon.

I set down my wine glass on the wood floor away

from where the dog will be and look up to see rain

drops on the slats.

My Chocolate Lab wakes, slides off the couch,

follows me out of the house and faces me, tail

wagging fiercely.

He barks his whiskey bark, a bone collapsing in

his old throat. He gags and coughs, courteously

turning his head down and away.

He turns back, looks directly into my eyes as if

challenging me, “Come on, buddy. Let’s rumble.”

I wipe a sleeper

from his eye left again by a busy sandman and pat

him on his head. His tail swings rhythmically. He

squints approval and

lifts his bony, football player’s knees into the house

looking for his mistress.

We sit in the sun on the

south-facing balcony

soaking up the warmth,

out of the wind on a cool,

pre-autumn September

afternoon.

My Chocolate Lab nudges my

forearm and nudges again.

I look away from the poem and

I look at him beckoning me.

He’s old.  He might not be here

a long time and someday

I will wish that he were here to

nudge my forearm.

I rub behind his ears;

I ball up a fist and

rub his snout

which itches with late

summer allergies.

He goes to lie in the sun.

I look over at my wife and

return to Jim Harrison.