Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The last of the Wild


I watch geese flap into a bouncing line then fade into black dots behind the edge of the horizon. I delight in the dance of the clouds. I gently mirror the rhythm of the water as it carries tree debris down river. I feel the wind and watch while it bullies the grass, puppets the leaves and seduces strands from beneath my pinched metal hair pins.

I want land, but I can't afford to buy it from the government who pretends to own it with their taxes and town halls. Even if I could, I don't want to buy it, but borrow it like a library book, returning it after my proper turn. I would learn to cultivate a small piece of it, but mostly I'd just like to exist within it.  

I climb out of the car. I hear the cries of coyotes. Do they sing for the storm of snow drifts the forecasters have foretold? Do they yelp for a kill? Are they serenading the glow of our slivered cratered moon? I wait, my boots perched on frozen dirt, wondering if they are weeping at the industrial hum of man's machines. CRYING OUT to break the already shattered silence.

I pull the laces of my snow boots into tight bowed knots over my folded pants, then snap my long navy blue coat from my knees to my neck. I leash my wolf-mate, slip my fingers into my mismatched mittens and walk into the sideways snowy sleet. She dives for tiny rock caves and stick pile tunnels where critters might be hiding or hibernating, her snout wet and white, her eyes wild with an explorer's lust. We climb, crunch and then together we run. She is my sled dog, though I am without sled. She pulls and my feet become light and slick as wooden slats.


A Wise Friend

A wise friend is akin to a book of old wisdom.  A book of bone and soul and skin. A book that breathes and speaks and eats. A book with a so...