I’m guessing you don’t have a dog, Bill. You certainly get across teh hugeness of it all perhaps with a few redundancies, but it gives us a memory check (cheque) for sure.
Doug
> On Nov 17, 2020, at 1:57 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> We look at the world once, in childhood
>
> The rest is memory
>
> – Louise Gluck
>
>
>
> Primary school seemed so HUGE then. How can you be sure anything is EVER
> its real size?
>
> – David Mitchell
>
>
>
> Under attack -
>
> get away get away
>
> A barking
>
> black and white dog
>
> bursts forward open-mouthed
>
> front paws ploughing at the ground
>
>
> Struggle to clamber up the step
>
> – the only available refuge
>
> so high up
>
>
> Dim possibility
>
> of being bitten
>
> but more
>
> just want away
>
> from abrupt
>
> angry-sounding
>
> quick-firing loudness
>
>
>
> See the scene now
>
> in a memory frame
>
> Pan back -
>
> there, the unpaved yard
>
> the chooks somewhere near
>
> the massive - concrete? - step
>
> – the way up to the back door
>
> from the back yard
>
> Too short to reach
>
> the door knob
>
> even if standing up were possible
>
>
>
> At the time no frame
>
> just present tense –
>
> bailed up by the bark
>
>
>
> What size that step?
>
> A vast plateau?
>
> Its up-ness all that mattered
>
>
>
> Stuff just happens
>
> to you and around you
>
> when you are small
>
> The dog episode
>
> just retrievable enough
>
> to form a slim anecdote
>
> and a lifetime's phobia
>
>
>
> bw
>
Douglas Barbour
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https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Listen. If (UofAPress):
There was the usual amount of corruption, intimidation,
and rioting.
Sir Charles Petrie
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