On the 7th night of our trip I awoke to my sister at the door of the guest room with an urgency in her voice. My little niece had caught the flu sometime during the night and my sister needed some reinforcements. After waking my mom to find the extra towels and trying to comfort my niece, I sleepily headed back to bed. After awhile, when her crying had stopped, I could hear another cry in the dark distance. This time, not of a sick baby, but of the somewhat sad and echoing cry of the coyotes.
Full Winter Moon Coyote
Thomas Hubbard
Looks like our friend stopped
Outside your bedroom window last night and
Just stood still in the new snow
For a while, enit?
The way one set of his tracks
Outsizes the others…
You know his feet were
Same size in all the tracks,
So he must have stayed
Long enough on that spot
So more snow melted
Under his paws
Maybe he was trying to
Make up a tale to
Whisper in your ear, or
Maybe he listened to your dreams
To ease his lonesome feeling
Maybe he climbed inside a dream and
Hid behind a lush memory, intending to
Play some kind of a trick, but then
Thought better of it.
Or…maybe he was the one
Dreaming, and you…
Do you suppose he only stopped
To admire the snow?
