Shisa took me for a walk today.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t planned a walk;<\/p>\n
I had other, more productive ideas:<\/p>\n
pull the weeds, spread the mulch.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shisa doesn\u2019t get that many walks anymore.<\/p>\n
She has worn her arthritic hips out<\/p>\n
with the many glorious walks she has taken<\/p>\n
in her long and good life.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So when she started up the driveway<\/p>\n
and looked back at me askance<\/p>\n
(she would never go alone)<\/p>\n
I had to follow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Down the hill to the cul-de-sac,<\/p>\n
sniffing this, peeing on that,<\/p>\n
rolling in a neighbor\u2019s new-cut grass.<\/p>\n
Regular dog stuff.<\/p>\n
Wonderful dogly delights.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me where someone had<\/p>\n
pushed the forest back on a vacant lot,<\/p>\n
how you can see where the bank goes down to the creek,<\/p>\n
where there are smells and sights she\u2019d love to explore,<\/p>\n
but it\u2019s too steep, so she sniffs at the edges<\/p>\n
and we go on our way.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me where the car lives<\/p>\n
that hit Calvin,<\/p>\n
but we do not tarry long in front of that house.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me the new brick-lined flowerbed<\/p>\n
someone has just put around their mailbox<\/p>\n
to keep the mail truck from killing the grass there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me that I can pull that hill now<\/p>\n
better than I could when we first moved here,<\/p>\n
seven springs ago.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me how good our new black fence will look<\/p>\n
when it is finished when you come up that hill.<\/p>\n
She seems to like that fence.<\/p>\n
Not for long, I suspect.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She showed me that the opportunity for a nice walk<\/p>\n
on a beautiful June morning<\/p>\n
before the heat sets in<\/p>\n
is a foolish thing to waste<\/p>\n
and that the weeds will still need pulling<\/p>\n
tomorrow when maybe her hips<\/p>\n
won\u2019t even let her think about a walk.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I can hear my sister asking, \u201cDid you take Shisa for a walk today?\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shisa took me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shisa took me for a walk today. I hadn\u2019t planned a walk; I had other, more productive ideas: pull the weeds, spread the mulch. Shisa doesn\u2019t get that many walks anymore. She has worn her arthritic hips out with the many glorious walks she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111273,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111247\/revisions\/111273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}