As  National Poetry month comes to a close I had to share another of Glenys Drew’s poems. Titled Best  Friend, Glenys explains:  “Veronica Mortimer took a great photo of Rosie, the subject of my poem, ‘Best Friend’. I’ll send that too so she can be pictured as you read. I don’t know how many ‘lives’ dogs are supposed to have, but, as Steve Tanner (our vet) said, our devoted Rosie’s been given a major second chance. She’s only just over three years old.”

The adorable and very lucky Rosie

 “Look into their eyes, and you will ultimately see yourself. An emotional mirror, looking back at you, animal to animal.”~ Kevin Behan

I wake each day at daybreak and I know what they’re about;
I know if they’ll be staying in or if they’re going out.
For one thing, footsteps prior to dawn, as sure as here I stand,
Means they’ll be heading to the car, brief cases in hand.
And as the car goes down the drive and I’m sitting in my pen;
They’ve said they’ll see me later, but all I know is when
I hear the top gate clinking a long time later on,
They play a trick – Are both back yet, or will there be just one?

The suitcase coming down the stairs gives me a sinking feeling;
To see the horse get in the float is ‘specially unappealing;
They do it for the greeting that I give on their return;
But the higher that I leap their faces change from glad to stern!
It’s very hard to fathom, but as I wait here standing guard,
I count the hours to their return, when out into the yard
We run and do our errands for it is a lovely farm;
And it is there I’m most required to keep these two from harm.

I run around the tractor wheels to keep him from alarming
Her as she unlatches gates, when hay bales they are moving.
I don’t know how they’d fare without my running fast about
To let the tractor in and stop the horses running out!
As she is slightly smaller I keep her in closest view;
I keep a wary eye on both; he doesn’t know I watch him too;
I’ve heard him say he knows to find the place where she is hiding –
It may be cottage, house or barn – from the place where I’m abiding!

One day they said, ‘Jump in’, and we went driving in the car
To the oddest of menageries! A cat and budgerigar
Were waiting with their owners to discuss things with a man;
I still don’t know what happened there but after I came home
She said that small word, ‘baby’, and ‘So sad I’d had no say’;
I’m not quite sure yet what she meant; a bit dazed I was that day;
Sometimes it’s hard to fathom as I listen to their chatter,
If there is something I can’t have, how can it really matter?!

Especially since that fateful day in shrubbery or creek,
I still don’t know exactly, but I became so very weak;
Sick and low I soon became, and felt an awful pain;
I thought I may not see my friends or Rose Gum farm again!
They took me to that meeting place where I had been before,
And Steve the vet stuck tubes in me, with needles in my paw;
I managed just to wag my tail as everyone was kind;
I had the very longest sleep and woke next day to find
I still was there, with Steve the vet still looking after me;
He said I’d ‘turned a corner’, and it was thanks to ‘dual Antevenine’;
He told my folks that I should stay as quiet as a mouse,
And I was glad as I was let much longer in the house;
I’ll ne’er forget, as I’ve since heard, I put up such a fight
To come back from the very brink and beat a brown snake bite!

So now I’m back and at my best; who knows who will come ‘round
To play and work, in rain or sun? My pure joy has no bound!
It might be Pippa, Mia or Mil; they bring their people too;
At first I showed them ‘round the farm; now they know what to do.
They have a farm-stay, like the boys, but just one at a time;
It shares the fun around, you know, and just as sure as I’m
A ‘red dog’, although not in words but in language that we show,
Right to the end you’ve got a friend – the best you’ll ever know!

Glenys Drew 2011