Pets + Notebooks

I’m living with all these dead pets.
The weight of pending inevitability.
end point and eternity at a crossroad.
They’re here now and forever
What feels like forever

Dogs can’t tell time, they don’t understand
an hour, or a week, or a lifespan
they are here asleep atop your head
and then they’re here forever in the cold spots
on your couch and in the quiet delivery of the mail
You need to let go of time and scratch the unreachable
spot behind their ears. When it is unreachable you will
want to crawl there, curl into that soft velvet spot.
just sitting timeless.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

I have a new moleskin. I’ve been without a notebook for almost two weeks and my practice fell off a cliff. In a silent way, the way kids get taken from carnivals in the 80s. Spooky season is blanketing me and suddenly I turned around and lost all the days and pages. The notebook deserves more recognition than I was giving it. I used to think of my notebook as a lifeline, an extra boost and a helper to my creative practice, but I see it now as a bloodline. A vein and an artery. An essential organ to me.

I am resuscitated (I had to use spell check to figure out that word).