#old again

be dead. When I am reborn, 

you’ll be old again. 

🍁 Red Leaf Haiku by © John Clark Helzer 

The little dog is brown and black with a few white bits. She is small and round but gallops through the world as a bold adventuress. She is barely aware of her own presence in the world and is filled with curiosity. She is unaware that she is beautiful.

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There are birds. Bigger than she is, but remarkably, the same colors. They look at her with a mixture of suspicion and mild scorn; she is small and earthbound. She doesn’t notice. She feels a kinship. They all walk across the land together! They are animals! They smell interesting! They have the same colors! She runs to join them and, to her astonishment, with a great rushing sound and some confused honking, they rise into the air, disappearing rapidly into the sky, making distance too quickly for the little dog to follow.

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She is, above all, a small, round adventuress, who runs and leaps, runs and leaps, but cannot seem to do what they do. The air rejects her attempts. The sky is still too far. The geese do not wait for her. She runs and leaps, but they are gone. And she is earthbound. She sighs heavily, lies on her belly with her head on her paws. Perhaps next time she will find the secret. Perhaps next time she will fly with the flock, at the head of the great V. Perhaps she will be the newest goose.

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She is small, brown and black and white, curious, adventurous. She does not let disappointment or the lack of wings discourage her. There is always tomorrow. She can always try. There is always hope.