The Big Brick Review - Little Bricks

Building on the narrative of our lives...one brick at a time.


Trees and Dogs

by Peter Teall

A BOY BORN in winter.
A boy raised on an island hill over a sea of rooftops, a lawn-mown quilt of greens and grays.
A boy, feral and Catholic. A boy running with dogs, his closest companions.
A boy on a hill, running with dogs, and away. Running, running away from mean mouths and stern fingers.
A boy made his own island world. Made friends with trees and enemies of boys on dirt bikes.
A boy on a hill grew like a cloud, greater than the island fortress he made.
The boy-man swallowed his paradise of woods and dogs. And it lodged in his heart. A new fortress. With a key.

 

Peter Teall hasn't written much since high school. He did study art in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn. He then lived and painted in an adobe-walled, dirt- floored shack, standing in the shadow of Starvation Peak, in Northern New Mexico. When his artist dream dried up in the desert sun, he retreated home to Rochester, NY and became a therapist, his next calling. Now, like a warm breeze returning after a cold winter, he's feeling the urge to create once more.

"Trees and Dogs" photo © 2015 Gregory Gerard, featuring sculpture by Tom Otterness.

 

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