...Pops is Spinning...

Pops is one hundred and 

thirty six years old. 

Pops has no teeth. 

Pops has massive cataracts.

Pops is blind. 

Pops is blind but 

he knows where you are. 

Pops can smell. 

Pops has four feet and one tail. 

Often when he finds you, 

it wags. 

 

Pops stands out on an 

open expanse of grass, 

but he knows where he is. 

Pops takes a step forward 

and curves to his right. 

Pops proceeds in a tight circle. 

No more than six feet. 

No less than four. 

Pops moves faster and faster 

‘til he’s at full speed. 

Round and round he goes. 

Pops is spinning. 

Pops is spinning. 

 

This is present tense. 

It should be past. 

Pops was 136 years old. 

136 in human years 

and no more. 

Pops is dead. 

Pops was alive. 

Is.    Was. 

Which tense? 

 

Okay, let’s say I have 

memories of Pops being alive. 

It’s a warm summer’s day 

and Pops has been 

spinning in our distant back yard. 

Yes, this is a thing he did, 

but now, at this remembered moment, 

he stands blind and motionless, 

feeling the heat of a sun he hasn’t seen 

since his days as a pup. 

 

One of our neighbors is grandparent 

to a large group of children. 

On this day 

they have spied pops 

spinning in our back yard 

and have come around 

to ask me about him. 

I explain just how old Pops is; 

that he is toothless and blind. 

Their eyes sparkle at this knowledge 

for such attributes 

make Pops a special dog; 

a cut above the norm. 

 

One small girl energetically asks 

whether it would be okay 

if they all went back to pet him. 

With this, the others chime in with, 

“Can we? Can we?” 

“Of course,” I respond, 

and they all rush off 

to arrive in mass at Pops’ side. 

 

Here now, this blind old dog 

transitions from his 

lone sun baked solitude 

to the laying on 

of fourteen joyful hands. 

In our lifetimes, 

can we as humans ever hope 

to have achieved 

such level of adoration? 

 

There stands Pops 

and yet all of this 

exists only in memory. 

Pops is dead. 

His spinning has ceased. 

 

Stout Christians 

believe animals to be soulless; 

that there is no place in heaven 

   for a dog. 

 

They believe there will 

never be a moment when 

one would want to take pause 

from the perpetual bliss of choral music, 

stoop down, and hold 

a blind dog’s head in their hands.

 

Never mind, for 

I remember a day 

Pops may not 

have seen heaven, 

but surely felt it. 

 

Yes, Pops may be gone, 

but in my mind, 

he will spin away forever.

 

Ó03 Jack David Hubbell