coyote call

Hope is revolutionary patience.   Anne Lamott

it is quiet tonight, Saturday night

not even the frog's chaotic calling

rippling this dark stillness

deep silence echoes itself

calls to and enfolds into itself

I am waiting for the first yip-yip-yip

barking and pause, barking from the South

wait, I know it's coming

barking and chuckling from the East

from the top of the ridge, overlooking

this small house

there, there is the laughter 

bark, yip-yip-yip has another joined

this banter?  now the howl

one syllable drawn into an impossible vowl

if I have a ruff, it stands up hair by hair

North is summoned

to the West is the river

muddy from rain weeks before

to the West is the run-off pond

where the frogs call until footsteps pad close

and the chuckling and barking 

take up circular yodeling

this dark winter these voices

like ghosts, circle in waves

make the galaxies overhead a cathedral

awaken me from deep sleep

pull that long note

from four directions

I think about the patience it takes

trusting Buck Eye to burst green

then Mayfly to fill the sundrenched spring

16feb08LPC