Not long long ago nor far far away,
I remember it like it was here and yesterday.
November the first, nineteen eighty eight,
In the year of their lord, in an empty Begumpet.

The youngest of the litter was six weeks old,
The last one to go but the prettiest, I'm told.
As many weeks old as she was inches in height,
And as many grades deep an immaculate white.

A wet black nose and two lovely black eyes,
Two pink little ears heard her parents' muffled cries.
Four little paws held her puzzled where she stood,
She'd run back to her mother, if only they would.

The servant boy reluctantly pushed her our way,
Powerless, she toddled, and first learnt to obey.
Four little paws settled down in Amma's palm,
Eight adoring eyes she now saw meant no harm.

Laid out on a cloth that night, in her first ever bed,
Were some of my toys, though at first I had said,
They were mine and I wouldn't hear the least of keeping them there,
Till Nanna said she was my sister, and they were hers too to share.

More effective persuasion I rarely since have heard,
And in protest I've rarely since even dreamed a single word,
As Maria became Silivas became Silvi and grew,
Out of cars and houses, and even points of view.

Seven times the quicker she grew but without age,
Without ever a litter of seven, or even one, in her image.
There was to be only one like her, gone seven times too soon,
But in my eyes that seven times outlived even the moon.

The memories are too numerous to recount to crippling rhyme,
So this is what I choose to be the single headline time.
The day a puppy sniffed her way into a family of four,
To the bottoms of our hearts and of the garden floor.