Yesterday, a Christmas card came in, among several others. It was from a dog-loving friend who had chosen to support a canine adoption organization with her choice of Christmas cards this year. On the inside, I found a lovely handwritten message from my friend. Facing it, the canine charity had printed a poem that I barely registered until the title jumped out at me and nearly knocked me over.

"One Brown Dog"
by Dorothy Margaret Stuart

The office door closed, dulling the din from the kennels.
"What do you want this dog for," I was asked austerely.
"House-dog? Watch-dog?" I looked at him,
gaunt and quivering,
Amber eyes searching mine. "I want him," I answered,
"As a friend." They were satisfied then.
They wrote on the paper,
"One brown dog."

Cross-bred he is, not a mongrel. Some collie about him.
Surely a collie's tail, all flaunting and plumy?
He still wags it only half-arc. He is doubtful and anxious,
Haunted by eight days' divorce from the graces of living,
In a teeming world where he was a nameless unit -
"One brown dog."

Joyous, fleet creature, graceful and ardent and golden,
Look at him now, as he skims the green like a swallow,
Or lies relaxed with a loving head on my instep.
"As a friend," did I say? Well I know what
riches of friendship
Were pledged by the three brief words on the
Battersea docket -
"One brown dog"

I truly believe that all the dogs we've ever had still surround us even after they pass; they're too loyal and loving to leave. They're at our heels, or curled up in the crook of our knee, or scampering along the trail, leading the way. We just can't see them or feel them. At least, most of the time. But every rare so often, they let us catch a tantalizing, ephemerally tangible glimpse of them in some shape or other: a photo that shows up on a facebook feed; another dog that looks or sounds eerily like the lost one, or a caper or caprice of the present dog that hauntingly, perfectly channels the predecessor. Today, that poem in that Christmas card, a poem I'd never come across before, reached out and grabbed me by the heart. Hello, Mira. Merry Christmas, Brown Dog.