Old Ghost Dogs
By Sam Wagan Watson
“Some things are beyond talking.
Not the mind, not emotions,
words will always come for them.
Perhaps the mind lives in this barrier
entirely of its own creating. You
see it the way it is, it looks back the same, -
The fence, the lake, they’re just there.”
from A Dog Barking
Martin Harrison; Summer
A mentor once asked me if I could sense ghosts. Yes, I’ve
been scared of the dark on many occasions where light and
time can’t reflect rational measures. I am no older in the night
now than when I was a child; ghosts pepper shadows unevenly.
You can only taste them as does my dark skin, they’re just there
and why should I be so afraid? I am to become one, one day
soon, and then bark into the silt and yearn again to taste my
breath when it was young. Future nights of my pasts-being and
dog-eared visions …
Copyright © 2015 by Samuel Wagan Watson