Another poem

As promised. This is an incredibly simple poem, but it has fantastic resonance.

Praise of a Collie

She was a small dog, neat and fluid --
Even her conversation was tiny:
She greeted you with bow, never bow-wow.

Her sons stood monumentally over her
But did what she told them. Each grew grizzled
Till it seemed he was his own mother's grandfather.

Once, gathering sheep on a showery day,
I remarked how dry she was. Pollochan said, "Ah,
It would take a very accurate drop to hit Lassie."

She sailed in the dinghy like a proper sea-dog.
Where's a burn? -- she's first on the other side.
She flowed through fences like a piece of black wind.

But suddenly she was old and sick and crippled .
I grieved for Pollochan when he took her a stroll
And put his gun to the back of her head.

Norman MacCaig