Orlando

She went out with a growl and a spit;

not grumpiness, you understand,

but arthritic pain in her joints.

She'd been fading for the last few weeks,

great weight loss, her fur no longer plush;

but it was her eyes, they looked haunted,

not fear of death but fear of life itself;

the long day-to-day endurance.

We laid her in a bed of autumn leaves,

under the hedge, below the smoke bush

flaming its defiance into the sky.

The house still resonates with her presence:

her curled sleeping shape

her daily dash down the hall

her deep-throated purr.