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Here we are trying to cope with the tragicly early loss of our wonderful friend, Bibi. The picture above is only as a small puppy; but she grew into a magnificent mature black Standard Poodle -- same size as Mady but providing a dramatic contrast to Mady's apricot colour. As explained elsewhere, she surprised us by being less property-centred than all our other poodles and ended up half a kilometer away on Danforth Avenue with traffic being struck and killed by a passing truck. But it was her bouncing spirit we should all try to learn from as we bounce towards that speeding oncoming fender of our final night.

To Bibi with Bouncing

		Six days before Valentine's
		you bounced into another world
		leaving your lovers in this one
		cutting hearts in exuberant curves from our lives
		pasting them onto doily snowscapes
		to send to you by dark dream-messengers:
		poodles like you, long-legged, with dense black fur,
		nightly nosing our valentines towards
		that bed hollow between us
		where your sweet curls no longer lie.

		Bouncing was your forever way
		of living caution-free among us.
		A year ago, at your first snowfall
		did you stop to reflect, as humans might:
		what be this white stuff?
		whence did it come?
		why wasn't I told?
		better paw at it gingerly?
		No, none of that, not one mean sniff of it.
		Rather, a flying leap out the door
		and bounce bounce through its playful newness,
		nose ploughing up thick silvery furrows of our laughter,
		then you, charging back, crystal-capped and panting.

		Had the world been laid one morning with trampolines,
		would you have stared in disbelief?
		nothing this-like has ever happed before?
		no way, no sir, no, Bibster:
		If life must be so brief, why live it cautiously?
		You'd have charged headstrong/long onto the very fun of it,
		bounced your springy way from door to beach horizon back
		returning happy, breathless, for our praise and chewsticks.

		Between bounce sometimes, in comfort soft and still
		on our black sofa, one ear draped so, half mast
		you were invisible
		black on black
		while we, in ignorance, called, at the door, your name.
		Yet suddenly the white of an eye or tooth,
		a meteor shower against the winter sky
		cascading through our lives,
		a brief, astonishing transit of joy,
		burned up in our atmosphere,
		still arcing its sacred way into our hearts.

		Bibi, if we could bounce like you -- 
		and maybe through you we yet can learn -- 
		why bounce we would our happily headstrong dance each day
		and day and ever again day -- 
		each instant light as the crystal air -- 
		and up and up and down and
		smiling, joyful up again
		to meet that speeding fender
		of our final night.