Golden

The leash is a formality
they do not bother anymore.
The great oaf grins blindly
on his morning walk
which often as not
is in small circles on the sidewalk.

There's a labrador on his block,
and a full poodle, even a dane once,
but the plodding, smiling one
instills no sense of grandeur in size
as the others do. He is nothing
to fear, but perhaps everything
to the well-shorn man who walks him.

This is a true Golden. His coat
does not show his age, only the
sag and squint of him, and the grin
that so clearly chants each morning
I am glad for this one more day.
Plod on, Golden, and gaurd your block
as it will gaurd your body in the earth
one day. But not today, good boy, not today.