Life is lived one breath at a time and second by second. We open our eyes; we close them.

Life is warmth sound touch…

In the woods the dogs pant. Lily sits down and draws her ears back into tall points. Her tongue rolls out like soft bubblegum melting. Ozzie grows fatter with every breath, and Hershey guards her tennis ball, growling and running and coming to me where I sit beside Lily on a rock. Bandit is just a hint of movement through the trees, or even less than movement. He is the shade of tan passing across shadows or interrupting the dark tree trunks.

His clown’s grin appears with wide black lips stretched along white teeth with a flopping pink tongue.

Back home and on the cool tiles, they pant.

I dig holes in the yard and stuff them with manure and peat moss while thunder rumbles like a massive engine descending, as wide as the town. Shadows come and I see the storm cut through: dark clouds push like lava to swallow the dainty white tufts of cumulous bursts against a cyan sky. Rain starts and I think of a car approaching with a blown radiator hissing steam, but the sound comes from millions of drops colliding with leaves. More thunder, but the rain and building wind abruptly shut down and the darkness recedes. I hear thunder far away, as if the storm sent out a tendril overhead, then changed its mind.

Mom visits and the dogs do their circling, swarming repositioning for treats, shouldering for the best spot as mom hands out biscuits. Hershey Bitchy Face keeps growling.

Oh! Mom says.

That’s OK, they’re just telling each other they’re annoyed. It means, get away from me, this is my treat my house my person mine mine mine.

I rip out old, leggy, invasive plants, clear the bed and dig in new hydrangeas, a cone flower cluster, and add Joe pye weed for the butterflies.

Tomorrow I will see my friend and do my best to console the inconsolable. With my arms I’ll try to wrap him away momentarily from misery. Life is warmth and touch…

Everyone else will hug him, kiss him, and he will be shuffled along maybe not remembering each of us, the time, the day, if he had breakfast, and wondering how anything really matters.