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| Roberta Hill Whiteman [hanksville] |
from Roberta Hill Whiteman's Star Quilt:
The Recognition
We
learn too late the useless way light leaves
footprints
of its own. We traveled miles to Kilgore
in
the submarine closeness of a car. Sand hills
recalling
the sea. A coyote slipped across the road
before
we knew. Night, the first skin around him.
He
was coming from the river
where
laughter calls out fish. Quietly a heavy wind
breaks
against cedar. He doubled back,
curious,
to meet the humming moons we rode
in
this gully, without grass or stars. Our footprints
were
foreign to him. He understood the light
and
paused before the right front wheel, a shadow
of
the mineral earth, pine air in his fur.
Such
dogs avoid our eyes, yet he recognized and held
my
gaze. A being both so terrible and shy
it
made my blood desperate
for
the space he lived in:
broad
water cutting terraced canyons,
and
ice gleaming under hawthorne like a floor of scales.
Thick
river, remember we were light thanking light,
slow
music rising. Trees perhaps, or my own voice
out
of tune. I danced a human claim for him
in
this gully. No stars. He slipped
by
us, old as breath, moving in the rushing dark
like
moonlight through tamarack,
wave
on wave of unknown country.
Crazed,
I can’t get close enough
to
this tumble wild and tangled miracle.
Night
is the first skin around me.
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