This poem describes a mother and daughter walking out in a muddy field to see a newborn llama. The family pet, a black lab, is running to and fro, trying to get the women to play with him and his stick.

In lines 13 and 14, the poet writes:

13.  This morning he has more to do

14.  with time, how it runs ahead and keeps

I believe the author is using a metaphor to compare the dog to time. Time sometimes runs so fast, we cannot keep up with it. The mother is aging and the daughter is lamenting how this happened, seemingly so fast. All of a sudden, she realizes that her mother is older. How could time have "run ahead" so fast? There is also personification because time cannot physically run, like a person, so the author is giving a livelike quality to an inanimate idea.

In lines 33 and 34:

33. gathers everything he is

34. and flies toward us,

This again describes the dog. There is personification, because the dog cannot "gather everything he is." There is imagery because obviously the dog is not flying, but it seems as if he is flying. These two lines are saying that the dog is collecting himself, gathering up all of his energy, and making a final dive towards the two women to get them to play with him and his stick.