The Coyote and the Old Man



And way off in the distance, a coyote sang,
And the earth spun for the sun and absorbed
the coyote’s song. That sadness tunneling into
topsoil and bedrock, into the spidery tributes of
roots and the skeletal remains of animals that had
long ago given themselves back to the womb.

And way off in the distance, an old man banged
Clothes onto the flattened backs of boulders, and
Imagining the man he no longer had, the old man,
too, began to hum the coyote’s tune, a soft crooning
that billowed, soon erupting into an exhaustive huffing
and gasps--the echo that was his cariño’s name.