melissaahowells
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(DIRECTLY WRITTEN TO PAGE, COME BACK FOR EDITS LATER) cloudless nights on the prairie starless nights in the hills moonless nights in the mountains a voice that chills Canis Latrans eerie cadence runs through me howls from the wild pierces the brimming silence that remains unbroken til the voice repeats itself again and again Canis Latrans cunning and adaptable sly genius legend ingrained Jokester and Trickster lopsided, toothsome grin mostly man is his bane wise for survival wise for the game outwitting for five million years his tale is not much changed except for man the ultimate predator from Alaska to New York's Central Park Canis Latrans leaves his distinctive mark and now he even mates with the wolf of the East to create a new species he's become the Coy-wolf to ensure his kin and five million year legacy can survive how cunning its not so surprising how amazingly adaptive I smile when I think how he has inadvertently re-invented himself LEGAL COPYRIGHT FOR THIS POEM 12:17pm PST TIME/DATE STAMPED AND ALSO FOR THIS WRITER MELISSA A HOWELLS AND ALSO FOR THIS LEGALLY COPYRIGHTED SITE TITLE MELOO STRAIGHT FROM HER TILT-A-W0RLD In a previous poem, "Crowded Out", how a coyote jumped on a Max Train near the Portland Oregon airport and rode it for two stops and a reporter managed to get a picture of him looking at the camera seated in a passenger seat. This was in 2001, when I moved here, just before 911. Imagine my surprise when I found this detail which I found so significant and amazing back then, as a detail in a book called Coyote America by Dan Flores in the Epilogue section near the back. The picture was in the printed in the Portland newspaper and I sent the clipping back home to a friend in Minneapolis to let her know about what sort of a place I had moved to. The other day when we were coming home from Sweet Tomatoes restaurant, a mother Coyote crossed the road. Her kits were on the other side. Coyotes are everywhere and yet, we think of them as a giant pest. They are indigenous. We are the invaders. We haven't given them the option of going anywhere else...hence, being crowded out... or adapting are their two choices. More and more I see dead coyotes by the side of the highway. It makes me very sad. We are losing our wildness and too much wilderness. Vote for this poem |
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