As a child, the solitary coyote

Enthralled me—a timeless figure

Etched on my desert home,

Playful in summertime hunts,

Yet haunting the whispering nights

With eerie moon-hymns.

-

I remember a pair of coyotes

Playing on the golf course one winter’s

Day outside my kitchen window.

The golfers have long retreated back

Into the clean, well-lighted country club

For a drink, and left the mossy course

Deserted to coyotes’ reckless wandering.

-

Two gray shadows, slim but not hungry,

Wander up and down,

Silhouetted against the sunset

Blue lake-green grass slipping into reds.

Yapping happily, the two coyotes

Forget to yowl at the moon, curiously.

I wondered at this a long time

As a child, disappointed

Without the haunting howl I expected,

Though it always scares me through.

-

When I look at you, feel your eyes

On me even as I’m rubbing the sleep

Off of my grubby-morning face,

They two, yapping happily,

Float back into my mind, though we two

Are a long way from my desert home—

Alone we yowl at the moon

In solitary prayer, knowing God’s grace

Looms in time, another day,

But together we forget to howl in the dark

Touched by angelic bliss—two souls

Forget they are, indeed, two.

-

We two yap frivolously, though aware

That two souls will dwindle to one,

One left on a dusty crag—

The solitary coyote I childishly envied—

Echoing his yowling hymn.