Walking The Dog Poem by Frank Avon

When I go walking, I daydream.
I talk to myself.
I never thought walking was for exercise.
Not till my cardiologist said so.
For me, it was a simple pleasure.
A way to relax.
Necessary for mental health.

I walk to compose myself
(quite literally) -

and speeches and lectures,
articles for publication,
editorials for my professional journal,
letters to the editor,
letters to the ones I love
(which I never get around to mailing) ,
letters to the History Book Club
refusing to pay a bill for books I never ordered,
essays,
book reviews,
sermons for a little country church at Chestnut Ridge,
sermons I no longer deliver,
committee reports for the Faculty Senate,
eulogies,
another set of memoirs,
all sorts of lists

- and poems like this.

But when I walk my dog
(which he insists I do every afternoon)
he doesn't do any of this:
he just enjoys himself
sniffing and pissing

and jerking his leash to chase a rabbit
or squirrel
or the neighbors' cats,
or at night
under each street light
a July fly,
or cricket,
or a toad.

Walking is his business,
and if you interrupt him,
he just lifts his nose in the air,
swishes his tail,
and prances down the street
(yes, he really prances)
as if to say,
'Get a move on, Bud!
What I do
is none of your business.'