Coyotes

By John I. Blair

How would my father
Justify to me
The dead brown husks
Of killed coyotes
Strung upon the fences
Down the long road to Camargo?

I’d spied their kin
Loping lean and shrewd
Through the bunchgrass
At dusk or dawn
And could not picture
Trails without them
On the shaggy prairies.

But fools, and friends of fools,
Void of contrition,
Still post these rotting markers --
To celebrate stupidity
And ignorance I guess.

Luckily, coyotes, unlike us,
Have learned from their mistakes
And may be here
Sniffing the fragrant breezes
When we have pawned
Our vagrant way
Into perdition.

©2005 John I. Blair

First published in the Post Oak
(Arlington Conservation Council newsletter) April 2006