On our hill there was a trail to the moon.
Our black dog found it, beat it into the ground with his paws.
It could be supposed that he hated moons,
that his ferocity was more than dutiful, 
but we’ll never know.
At night he would run, hackles up, furious,
in a line through the grass
to join the darkness at the crest
where the moon was found, again, 
not to be resting, but higher still in the sky 
where he had driven it, bright and silent 
above the night echo of warnings
barked hard and serious.
Years of this.
Even when he was old 
and groaned as he rose from the floor, 
he would summon his fury and run at the sky.

When he died, we walked the ashes up his path,
left them as close to the moon as any of us could get,
dog burned off, black as he ever was, 
a Labrador the color of crows, 
spread out into grass growing back,
his mark on the hillside fading,
filling in those thousands of nights he labored his voice into space,
yelled to himself as he ran:
Defend the house.
Defend the house.
Be fearless and savage.
Stop at nothing but the top of the earth.
And to the moon:
You are too close to what is mine.

Good dog.

All he needed to hear for a lifetime of soldiering.