The King's Dogs

Eisei, Mentor and Pascha
on the hill -- I cannot read the other two --
hind muscles, vibrant and intricate,
pass into the headstones. 

They are not those slabs
-- a trigger for memories not mine -- 
rather, in the chaotic snow tracks,
panting under the winter sun.

You there, talking to stones!
The dogs are dead,
the ground is cold.

Yet they were as real to me
as the art of words,
where life and death swirl unexpectedly.

On stopping at the headstones for the king's dogs, long gone but forever present, in Drottningholm Park.