Home   With lips drawn back in the dog rictus we can only call a smile, he perks his ears at the sound of that word, walk, he sees me at the door and struggles to his feet, clears the threshold and hobbles past me — the day’s adventure is underway at last. He lets me take him to the forest, where he pays me little mind, he lollygags and gets his nose into a world of smells. So how does he know it’s time — what instinct or will pushes him forward to lead me home, now when all we have left is the glass-flute trill of the woodthrush in the last hour of light before it too is lost? He knows, all right.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont July 2016