Do what you have to do
For the good of the pack
Because the pack is life

Do what you have to do
For the good of yourself
Because the pack is only a pack
Of the pups that make it up

Do what you have to do
To preserve the self
That which not only nourishes
Deconstructs

By startlight hush of wind
the owl's shadow voice
the campfire embers glowing inner universe by firelight
smoke curls weaving faint
coyote voices faint the pain
and smell of pitch fire
I sing you stars
I breathe obsidian
and again the owls shadow voice
leans back into times past singing first fire
brittle spine bent bowed toward the fire
voices low to murmur a child whimper

deer fat ****** upon to gentle dreaming
the mother of her song
the night cradles child
the owl, too, has young tiny hearts
and warmth of down and old man
coughing guttural spit to fire
young people giggling beneath hidden fondlings
soon to sleep
again coyote voices drown the mind
in a loneliness of deep respect
in love of those who camp just up the hill
and tiny crystals of tears
spatter the dust
legs that cannot ever carry me back to you
soul that holds you forever

Into the woods I go
To fall in love
With the coyote’s souls
And let them
Eat me whole.

Imagine that it's 2008
And a third grader
Walks to catch a bus

She's small (only three feet tall)
But walks quickly and quietly
As her sister says "wait for us!"

Imagine that, as she nears
The top of the hill
On a drizzly, chilly morning

She looks ahead
And sees a coyote
And remembers the grown-ups warnings

Everyone else
Is too far behind
To see what she can

The coyote and I
Looked at each other
And after a few seconds, he ran

Just up ahead is a trail
Where people seldom go,
Sidling down the gravel hill
Into growths of ash and birch and elm,
Thickets of wild plums,
Chokecherries, leaves turning dusty,
Verdant armies of stinging nettles
Protecting coveted stands of juneberries.

Bittersweet vines entangle aged elms,
Siphoning life, to produce four petaled reds
As summer goes down to autumn.

Leaving the wind above
To batter the old truck,
I descend into the silence,
Trees stand tall, but low
Below the breeze.

Down in this steep place
The wind cannot come,
The sun, when it finds its way,
Warms gently on the coldest day.

The spring my father dug
Before I was born,
Set into the weeping gravel hill,
Runs steadily,
Strong enough
To fill the battered tank,
To keep a goldfish or two alive,
To host strange crustaceans:
Tiny shrimp, just larger than ants,
Pebble crusted creatures
More insect than fish,
Frogs in the tank,
Toads out...,
Mosses and mud
Thirty years or more
At home.

Deer come to this tank,
On hot days or cold;
Coyotes, too.
Porcupines dine on treetops
Swaying quietly
A hundred feet below
Wild Montana winds.
Cattle in winter find life
In the quiet, constant water
Flowing here.

I am taken back
To a stifling July afternoon,
But cool here in this protected place,
Dragonflies floating
And cicadas sawing in the trees,
My mouth full of juneberries
As I circle my way,
Eating more than picking...
Coming face to face with a coyote.

Was he dozing?
Passing through?
Or, do coyotes eat
Juneberries, too?

We stop hard,
Stunned.
Then bolt in opposite directions,
My juneberries flying
From the milking pail;
His tongue between his teeth,
Tail low,
Feet flying into the brush beyond.

The birth of our day.
All fresh and touched with
The Master's hand
in dewy majesty.

The shell of sky
wet with foamy clouds.

The earth awaits wheeling birds
to rest again - benign in the
trees of their birth.
Burbling and raucous
in their boisterous
roosts.

Cacti creep along the
last vestiges of the
velvet night.

A coyote laughs.

He makes his lone way
up the still, starlit, streets.

And all is embraced by the
embarking orb emanating for eons
from the eastern estuaries.

I write upon mornings
because they are the marks of time
upon beginnings.

The new year begins at midnight.

But the new day?
ahh... the new day begins

with the

SUN.



SoulSurvivor
(C) 12/29/2015
all rights protected

The Crickets cackle “crisp,”
With an only interruption, being I,
Atop dust, whisper and
Desert highway.
I’d tell you if I were running,
But I’m not quite sure, not yet,
Leaving the Coyote to eat,
Respite, and devoured,
The singing Crickets,
A’howl later,
To deliver answers unimpeded.

I have a faint memory –
A snake’s grip promised, via hand and
Crystal contingency,
“Wiser,” once bestowed, the mystic;
An epic complete, atop 17 years of thunder,
Steel stained crimson,
Street stained whimper
And forever remaining,
“Under-construction.”

Symbolic a more relevant scaffold,
½ bamboo and the other steel, the tower,
Note ‘fore me, it’s only purpose –
Elsewhere, and anonymous,
While I tap my belly to some
Melody we’d once enjoyed;
Maybe something by, “Coltrane,”
Or maybe not; but music we’d both
Recognize and reminisce too.

It’s an awkward alchemy of sorts,
As the Crickets, post-mortem,
Persist if only to chirp, and the Coyote mulls.
When the dust continues to cake.
When the whisper finds newer ears.
When interrupt’s abrupt, erupts,
Pacifies and interrupts again;
My precious distraction –
An amnesia loyal in away from, “then.”
Somewhere beyond, “there,”
And onward, “anew.”

Coyote by my door at night,
meadowlark in the morning.
First that yip,
then that sleep,
now the pretty singing.

I'm a coyote
And i'm howling at the moon;
Thinking i'm alone...*

- (A.F)