Poetry Friday: Bidding goodbye to Rocky...whom I feel I knew

 Poetry Friday is hosted by Anastasia at Booktalking

Photograph by Jon Katz @ Bedlam  Farm Journal

One of my favorite non-teaching blogs is Jon Katz's Bedlam Farm Journal -  chronicles of farm life and the writer's life in lovely Washington County, New York.  Jon is a bestselling author, and also tends to a flock of sheep, among other critters.  His life so appeals to me.  If I knew anything about livestock, growing anything other than the occasional geranium or impatience, or could stand long winters trekking from barn to pasture to farmhouse in knee deep snow, I would move to Washington County in an instant.   But, since I can't, I live vicariously through Jon's gorgeous photographs and his daily posts, written so beautifully, about this type of life.  Jon keeps sheep, dogs, hens, roosters, barn cats...and donkeys.  One of these donkeys, Rocky, has been the subject of many posts recently - Rocky had been  failing, and Jon and his wife Maria had been wrestling with   the issue of what to do, of coming to terms with the humane and yet painful choice of putting Rocky down, granting him peace.

Now, I don't know the Katzs and I have never visited their farm, but the cyber world with its posts, and photographs and videos allows us a feeling of " knowing" people we will never meet.  And, by reading Jon's posts about this journey with Rocky, I felt as though this was all transpiring right across the way from our house in New Jersey - I could imagine the barn, Rocky's last days at pasture, the sweet moments he shared with his beloved family.  From Jon's posts, though, it was clear that Rocky's end was peaceful - he was surrounded by those he loved, and great tenderness. Lucky Rocky.

The End

BY MARK STRAND

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,

Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like

When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,

Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,

When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down

No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus

And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,

Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing

When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.