Not as morbid as you might think:
November verse 12: On a dead goldfish For Euan Today we found our last fish floating lifeless, limp, no longer gold, a death so tiny, not worth noting. True though, They shall grow not old. Flight path fuel dump? Change of season? Too much sun? Who knows the reason? This is not Menindee Lakes where millions died and my heart quakes. Today I felt a tiny tremor, rumble from a distant storm, an inkling that some day the worm will try my bones, from skull to femur. May mine be one tiny death, leave undisturbed the wide world's breath.
Me fail? I fly! 
You astound me every time you post, JS. I’m not up to your poetic genius but your theme to-day put me in mind of a piece of verse a distant cousin sent me years ago – which I think you will surely appreciate:
The School of Compassion
“Clare, do you remember the child who asked me
to bless the corner where you’d buried your mouse?
And I who had unlearned the logic of childhood
gave you cold answer of book-theology:
“mice have no need of grace or blessing,
but only humans who choose evil and good”.
But now I have learned in the school of compassion
I did not pass over the yearling squirrel
lying stiff and cold in the Wealden lane,
but lifted him gently and reverently laid him
cradled by roots of a wayside oak,
briefly his playground and now his long home.
Over his body, torn head to still tail,
I traced the sign of the world’s mending
and said “little brother, more innocent than I,
remember me in the peaceable kingdom.”
From Robert Murray SJ (a protégé of Tolkien; his father was on the team which produced a Chinese translation of the Bible directly from its original languages – LU’s Version; and his grand-father was the editor of the OED)
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Jonathan, I’m following your verses with pleasure, as ever.
The upside of losing a goldfish is gaining a frog or two.
But condolences for your loss all the same.
Richard xx ________________________________
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Thanks Richard, for condolences as well as words of hope. If only tadpoles could reach our balcony,
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Maybe a tree frog? Hope springs eternal.
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To Richard: Years ago Frank Muir and Denis Nordern on BBC Radio – word show “My Word” – “Harp Springs Hit Colonel in the Schumann Test”
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I loved that show, Jim, but I’ve got no hope of remembering any of those elaborate puns
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