There's A Winter Dialogue With The Stars Poem by Mark Heathcote

There's a winter dialogue with the stars
when darkness falls like a black sable fur hat
over your nose, your tired eyes that have
now long forgotten how to cry
and you don't quite know where you've been,
and a dog is howling because his master's gone
he's dead, but he won't be found-for-an-age.
Because he's a poet—sage who sleeps alone
and only the pages of an old musty poem book
shall know he's read his last moonlit chapter
that it's come to an end like this day's sun.

There's a winter dialogue-with-the stars
only an owl ascertains as it claws an old ivy vine
and hoots to its mate; the music is dead
but there's still a ghost in the fire a near
forgotten echo if you, just come to bed and retire.
There's an old musty poem book, bookmarked
that's been read a thousand times by moonlight
under the stars with watery eyes,
tired eyes that have now long forgotten how to cry
and don't quite know where they've been,
or even what they've seen beneath this rising sun.

Except for the dog howling because his master is gone
and knows it too won't be very long
until it gets put down to sleep,
and a black sable fur hat
will cover its dry nose, its tired eyes eternally
then after that, not-another chapter
not another heady midnight nap, nor the choir
of snoring sat on his master's lap.
not another chiming second beating in his heart
not another empty marrowbone minute wasted.
Cashing a stick hurled thrown a long, long way
to pass the time of day and return home.