The Writers' Circle

SHEBA 
                                       by
                                       Scott Ballantyne.

Sheba, what human crime permitted me
the sacrilege of your life?
What justification is there
in your injected sleep?
Forgive me, young dog,
My ignorance of your value.
And now you're gone
indulgence in your memory
is the self inflicted masochism
that will be your only immortalization
for as long as my passion lives,
and so my soul.

Sheba, what days we shared,
when I marvelled at your speed
and the beauty of movement bared
to my mortal, petty need.
And how you would run
with the freedom of the loosed chain,
and bask, panting, in the sun
but with limbs all attentive,
to be off again.

And quiet you walked by the river's edge,
content by my side, never being taught,
meandering for many a mile, never making a sound
that you might disturb my deep thought
and inhalation of the country around.

Remember how we sheltered under the tree
from the thunderous storm?
How, under my jacket, safe with me,
we both sensed a form
of love between man and dog.

How I stroked your neck
and caressed your nose.
How you licked my hand
and rested on my lap.
Nobody knows what we had.

But, Sheba, your love for me
was less than that of your freedom,
and in time you'd run free,
and I'd find you gone.
But on other's land
Liberty
is not respected in lesser creatures
than God   and the Law.

So, Sheba, your continued abandon led to your capture;
and your capture to your imprisonment;
and your imprisonment to my cruelty;
and my cruelty to my conscience'
and my conscience
to your death.

Frail Sheba, who fell foul of Man's Laws
that allow a mortal to licence death to animals,
forgive me the years you did not live.
And after your painless death
rest well in your sleep.
May you find your freedom
in God's Land.