The Last Dog

 

The Last Dog  

For the one who walked the path alone

I am the last dog of the dust-stained trail,  

My paws remember what the wind forgets.  

Where the drums once called and the fire spoke,  

I stood, bare-chested, beneath the blood-red sun.

They named me in the old tongue—  

Carved silence into my back with thorns,  

Fed me roots of men and memories,  

Taught me how to carry stories without breaking.

The others are gone—  

Some lost to the cities,  

Some swallowed by forgetting,  

Some never came.

But I went.  

In 2011, I crossed the threshold alone,  

With no brother beside me,  

No shadow ahead to follow.

The trees still whispered.  

The ground still knew my name.  

And I came out—not just a man—  

But the last dog of my line.

I do not howl for pity.  

I do not bark for fame.  

I carry the echo of a people  

Whose fire still lives in my chest.

So let them write their history books.  

Let them pave over the sacred paths.  

I walked them.  

I bled on them.  

I remember.

And I am not gone.

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