It was a buttered toast and cinnamon morning. I wore my robe, swirling across the cold kitchen floor to pour coffee, breathing its aromatic steam and watching the nodding leaves outside the window as my fingers tingled with heat.
He was already awake of course, came silently in the back door from one of his early walks. I could never replicate the way he moved, always alert and exceedingly quiet. I offered no coffee, no breakfast. He would deny it; always a thoughtful distance away. His eyes whined and feet wandered like the paws of a dog kept unwillingly indoors, pacing between windows and staring intently beyond the pollen-speckled glass. Perhaps he imagined the caress of the morning wind and warmth of sunlight, the way he once sought them from me.
“It is a beautiful day.” I whispered into my mug. He heard. His invisible ear flickered at the sound of my voice, but his head did not turn. His heart was lost out there, in the wilderness, and he would always search for it.
And I would keep watching, and wonder.