A Day with Our Beagle, the Bruegger Meister
Introduction
Bruegger was our first beagle, a companion who never asked much from us except to be near.
This poem remembers the quiet work we shared one long afternoon - how his presence turned
a simple task into a small act of devotion, and how, even years later, the memory still
brightens the dust of that attic with his patience and good heart.
The Attic of Hours
I climbed into the attic
to repair what time had weathered -
beams soft with age,
nails rusted to a whisper.
Dust rose around forgotten books,
their spines curled like sleeping animals.
The work was slow.
Splinters. Sweat.
That ache that comes
from effort repeated.
But I was not alone.
At the edge of every motion,
he waited...
my beagle, Bruegger.
Not for command or treat,
only to be near.
He knew the rhythm:
the narrow stair,
my pauses for breath,
the muttered curses
I thought I’d kept inside.
None of it startled him.
Halfway through the day,
I sat down on the top step.
He leaned against my leg,
head bowed - not heavy,
just there,
the way a tree touches the wind.
And in that stillness,
the work shifted,
no longer about rafters or nails,
but holding time together,
the way he held me steady
without asking.
Later, when the hammer fell silent,
he slept in sawdust,
his chest rising,
slow as forgiveness.
There are faster ways
to fix a roof,
easier ways
to build a life.
But I would choose this again -
every blister,
every floorboard,
every shared breath in the half-light.
We traveled those days together:
a man, a dog,
a house remembering itself.
Even now,
though the tools are put away,
I see his prints in the dust...
and the path between them,
where light still waits to fall.
GBS
2009
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