A man walks down a busy street
he knows well,
while grabbing a tight leash
to a helpful dog.
Tighter
and tighter
the leash is pulled,
until it snaps.
The man not knowing
feels for his friend,
but feels nothing,
except the frayed end of his broken leash.
He cries out for his dog
but feels nothing
except a cool breeze,
and an unfamiliar vibration.
He cannot see,
or hear,
while hysterical strangers scurry about
a wounded dog that lies,
hit and dying.
A blind,
deaf man knows something is wrong
and reaches out for a friendly hand
but only gets pushed aside.
He cannot speak the way people hear,
he cannot hear the noise people make,
and he cannot see the way people look.
So,
an out casted man clings to a pole,
sobbing,
because he does not understand.
Someone grabs him
and pulls him from his pole.
They shake him in frustration
and when they get angry
he is thrown in the gutter.
He senses a familiar scent
and crawls desperately looking for it.
People don’t understand,
he is kicked and pushed
yet he keeps on,
coming ever so closer to the growing scent.
He reaches out,
in one last desperate attempt
for something he knows,
and feels his quivering friend.
He wraps around him
and curls up beside him,
hoping to calm him.
In that instant,
in that moment,
he could see his friend,
hear his friend,
and talk to his friend.
But no words came out,
only tears of joy,
tears of sorrow.
Then the struggle of life,
shared between these two misunderstood creatures,
ceased.
A man,
never knowing words,
sight,
or sound,
and a dog,
more caring
and understanding
than any human,
lay lifeless…
on a busy street,
they knew well.