My three year-old Old English Sheepdog, Hamlet, dashed across the jeweled green carpet of the park’s tree and fern walled chamber. The mounting sun lit a fluorescent fog ceiling which clung to the tops of September trees flirting with fall. Mourning Doves cooed imitation owls; distant dogs barked in un-seen vacant yards and children’s laughter gathered at street corners. Wet woods, damp tree bark and burning leaves incensed the sharp still air.

Hamlet’s breath snorted in steamy gusts against the morning chill, a canine locomotive. His powerful muscles stretched and flexed in a wild and random run and scoot. His black and white fur streamed back from his face because of his fast pace.

As he dashed, each paw crashed into the dew laden grass, splashing away diamond cascades in glittering ripples leaving a foot path of dark puddles across a crystalline floor, a record in absence of where he had been. When his panting run was done, Hamlet came to me, his broad pink tongue hanging sideways, dragging drool; delight danced in his brown and blue eyes, and he licked up the water that glassed my shoes.

Hamlet died last autumn. He was thirteen.

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