Shane, What Are You Trying To Say?

Shane, Shane, with your head hung down in a dark silhouette, what are you trying to say? Is it your time to live or is it your time to die? Are you ready, are you willing, to give it all up? Shane, Shane, with your eyes downcast, what are you trying to say?

Food is still good, and you gobble it up, and water still cools your tongue. And the sun, the same bright sun that we’ve always known, drapes its rays across your brown-black back. Yet, the light never shines from your eyes. You can’t look up or protest or complain. Yet the day still follows on the heels of your night. You lie, so still, we think you’re dead, as you stare across the wood-grainy floor, as you wait for we don’t know what, as you see what we still can’t see.

And everyone says your time is up, but we’re not sure about that. It seems that you smile when it’s breakfast time or when the crocuses reach through the snow. And we think you remember last year’s azaleas—how they were all fired up in pink—and bumblebees sucking up their nectar while buzzing all around in a dance. We think you remember that ice-cream truck tootling up and down through the town, and the streets all ripe with sound. We think you remember how the oak trees stretch, how they reach all the way up, and how they play and how they sway in the white symphony of clouds racing across the blue summer sky. We think you might want one last look, and maybe you’ll give it a try.

So, Shane, what do you want us to do for you? Shall we decide or will you decide? Shane, just tell us and it’s already done. Shane, what do you want us to do? What are you trying to say?

The bad days were few; now the good days are gone, or so it seems, or is this all a lie? But shadows always skip out from their hiding places, and wind still cools the fever in your eyes, and the crocuses will get here yet.

Shane, Shane, with your head hanging low, your muzzle nuzzling the ground, what are you trying to say?