The Boy and Coyote.
For a friend, Ed Theis, met at Veterans Administration hospital
Fort Lyons, Colorado.
Ed Theis did not--
something had happened in his life.
He did not speak anymore.
He didn't say a word.
And I wondered why.
You can see the rippled sand riffs shallow inches
below the surface.
I walk on the alkaloid sand.
Willows crowd the edges of sand banks sloping to the Arkansas
River.
I get lonesome for the young afternoons of a boy growing
at akoma He listens to the river,
the slightest nuance of sound.
Breaking thin ice from a small still
pool I find Coyote's footprints.
Coyote he's always somewhere before you.
He knows you'll come along soon.
I smiled at his tracks which are not fresh except in memory
and say a brief prayer for good luck for him
and for me and thanks.
All of a sudden and not far away there
are the reports of a shotgun muffled flat
by salt cedar thickets.
Everything hots for several moments, no sound.
Even the wind holds to itself.
The animal in me crouches poised immobile eyes
trained on the distance waiting for motion again.
The sky is wide.
Blue is depthless and the animal and I
wait for breaks in the horizon.
Coyote's preference is for silence broken only
by the subtle wind, uncanny bird sounds, soft cedar scraping
and the desire to let that man free listening
for the motion of sound.