There was a rocket set loose in a tangled yard. Neither stone nor weed nor any living thing could deter this beast of bone and fur from its newly appointed rounds. Circle after circle, stone after stone, weed after every darn weed.
Eventually escape velocity is reached and Zelma banks hard around the final fence and slows down just enough for the mangled mop of her hair to stop streaming straight out behind her. By the second lap, she focuses on you, her new human, and slows to a crawl. The circles get really small and crescendo into something much resembling a full pirouette. Or maybe just a bow to the audience?
She lays her chin on your knee, I think, as we sat on the back steps. Or was it your foot?
Somewhere in that tangled yard she had skimmed the shining edge of the bridge between love and freedom. She saw, as we did, that one begets the other, and that when a heart leaps, so does the soul. She understood then, as we do now, that we all cross that bridge, over and over, back and forth, again and again. Always free. Always loved.