Get over your hill and see what you find there, with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Upon our every return your feet prance up and down
As if the warmth of the hardwood floors suddenly rose sixty degrees.
Seven inches of cottony tail sway and somehow possess
Enough power to oscillate your entire body.
Your head bows forward, your ears bow backwards,
And your voice quivers an overexcited you're back!
As if you thought we’d never return from our
Twenty-minute trip to the grocery store.
If only humans could show such affection
And stop searching for that unattainable perception of possession perfection.
Is the present not good enough?
Life is only complex because we make it so.
Always planning ahead;
You can’t see, let alone appreciate, what’s happening right now
If you’re constantly fixated on the horizon.
Joy is no longer unpretentious.
Crazed is the grown woman playing on the swings.
Senile is the man who can’t bring himself to honestly protest when his child suggests
What if the creatures from fairytales really do exist?
The more questions I hear, the more I believe
That love is the answer to all.
A fervent wag of a tail, a bonk of the nose,
A scratch behind the ear, a hug, a kiss.
You taught me that happiness is so simple if I just allow it to be.
So, hats off to you, little buddy,
And to all of those who trade in the urge to program the impending
For the prospect of frolicking on a playground
Or toying with the possibility that
Maybe, just maybe,
Mermaids really do sing beneath the sea.

Rest in peace, Chancey.

And, my friend, when I am very old, and I no longer enjoy good health, hearing and sight, do not make efforts to keep me going. I am not taken gently. I shall leave this earth knowing with the last breath I draw that I was always safest in your hands.
-Author Unknown