Dead Dog Valley
Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

From the Philadelphia Art Museum, Anastasia  and James headed up the  Schuylkill River past Boat House Row and walked among the silent statues.

They searched the earth for treasure, but found horror and death.

Trying to escape like many trapped in the city, the bronze figure curses its creator for welding his feet to the pedestal on which he stands.  Anastasia and  James also tried to escape the city and turned east unto a trail that led into the woods. 

He could only curse that which held him down.

They came upon a spring whose stone basin had broken bottles inside.  "This is  not the country", Anastasia said as she picked the broken glass form the spring.  But they continued on the trail, passing a pay phone laying in the weeds.  Anastasia said with a warning tone, "this place scares me, that pay phone was ripped out by its roots, carried back here, and ripped opened for the money inside.  That's a bad omen."  But James dismissed Anastasia's warnings and continued on the trail.

"There's been a serial killer reported in the news all week, you know," whispered Anastasia as if the trees were listening.  James told her that  was on the Belmont Plateau, not where they were.  But James didn't know for sure where the Belmont Plateau was, or where He and Anastasia  were as they continued deeper into the woods.

Beaten to death with wooden sticks, cold death delivered welcomed death.

Down into a wooded valley to a babbling brook the trail took Anastasia and James. But  serenity here had a violent bit of art work on display.  In the middle of the path, by the edge of the brook, a dead dog found its final resting place.  "Look at the sticks all around the dog, they were used to beat it to death," fearfully moaned Anastasia.  "lets get the hell out of here, now," she demanded with a voice ready to start crying.

James studied the dead dog, and indeed it look as Anastasia had surmised, the dog had been battered with sticks, "maybe it was only kids who beat the dog with the sticks after it had already died," said James trying to calm Anastasia.  " Dogs just don't drop dead in the middle of a trail, in the middle of a woods," countered Anastasia, "Besides that, I rather not encounter any kids in these woods, if those kids took pleasure in beating a dead dog," cried Anastasia.

 

photograph taken 1979...1981

In the woods where the children play,
a face carved into a tree,
smiles back at those who
stare too long,
 pondering ,
what it is that they see.

 

James E. Frizzell
Post Office Box 595
Kimberton, Pennsylvania 19442

e-mail: jimmy@jim-frizzell.com

date posted: April 16, 2001 tax day
last revised: April 07, 2004