When Dogs Die

When a dog dies,

does its ghost haunt its grave - if it has one?

Grave, that is.

A place where it's laid down to rest.

To be a ghost,

you must at first have had a soul.

So, I guess what I ask is:

Do dogs have a soul?

They do if people do.

So do pigs, and birds, and ants,

and bugs so small they can't be seen.

And what of plants?

Each nut, each seed, is life.

An egg. A germ.

All things that live have got a soul - or none.

Soul is life, life is soul.

Two words for the same thing.

But ghost?

Do souls stay, when life has gone,

and there's but a corpse that moves no more?

Flesh that rots,

bones that crack and turn to dust.

Where does life go,

when flesh turns to soil?

If what makes us move

is not the same as that which moves,

then life doesn't stop when legs do.

The soul moves on.

I tell you:

The ghosts of dead dogs bark at their graves.

If you try hard,

if you be still,

and make no noise of your own,

you can hear it.

My "Syllable Poems" are written exclusively with one-syllable words, which is not that hard in the English language. All the words of fundamental importance to a poet have just one syllable.
Here's my Youtube account, if you prefer going there:
Aravadia.

Stefan Stenudd