Windy and cold after last night’s freakish warmth. Up in the woods, a large coyote trots across the threadbare snowpack. The wail of a train.
coyote
Shadows lose their sharp edges as thin, high clouds move in. Where the coyote chorus sang last night, now only the distant howls of children.
Fine snow is falling, an hour before sunrise. Dogs start barking in the distance, and after a while a coyote answers—one long, wavering cry.
Weak sunlight and the creek’s quiet gurgle. I think of the dead deer up in the field, her throat torn open by coyotes, feeding their songs.
Clear and cool. A bee-fly hovers over the lip of my cup. Right next to where I sat stargazing last night, a fresh twist of coyote scat.
A series of high-pitched howls from down in the hollow: coyotes or children? It’s hard to tell. I watch a silent, nearly motionless crow.
The scattered honks of a lone Canada goose to the east set off a coyote on the sunlit ridge to the west. I take a deep breath of cold air.
*
The Morning Porch will be going on hiatus for a few days. I should be back to the porch on Monday or Tuesday.
Blue sky carved up by the ley lines of industrial man. Who else leaves such arrow-strait trails for mile after mile? Only Coyote.