She’s limping slightly from muscle stiffness
in the afternoon,
sleeping away the hours
she isn’t needed by her humans.
I’m limping too.
The mountain was a hard climb,
third one in three days.
Moka, the dependable chocolate-brown
English lab coaxing me
ever higher on the slope,
stopping, looking back,
checking that her slow, aging companion
is still following.
She climbs three times to my one,
chasing sticks,
bounding up and down slopes,
rolling around in patches of snow.
My body needs a break,
so I toss a stick onto the slope.
Moka attacks it,
shakes her head violently,
thrashing the stick until it cracks.
But then the stick fights back and
there is a spray of blood across the snow.
Moka pays this minor injury no mind;
her tail still wags excitedly.
We claim another summit,
take the slow route on descent,
stop for the frequent vistas of Okanagan Lake,
sip some water.
I reward her with treats.
The descent goes on and on,
our weary bodies wondering when it will end.
I toss a stick for Moka,
but she no longer maddingly pounces on it.
She just walks towards the stick,
sniffs it, and looks back at me.
Yeah, I’m tired too.
Here we are now in late afternoon,
after napping,
both of us hobbling about.
We gobble down our dinners.
Enough climbing for this week,
I promise her.
Just an easy walk tomorrow.
But morning comes,
we’re no longer sore,
I’ve had my coffee,
we’ve had our breakfast,
and as the morning mist clears and
the mountains reveal themselves across the valley,
I can’t help but smile.
Moka, ready to climb another mountain?
Her tail spins like a helicopter rotor,
she bounds around the kitchen.
Hell yes!
