Warrior Poets

It was Coyote
I hadn’t seen him in awhile

Wearing his buckskins
Smokin’ a pipe

“Where’s your cee-gar?” I asked
“Lost it hitchikin’ near Bakersfield,” he said
“I expect I’ll find another”

“How you been?”
we asked each other
at the exact same time

“Well that’s
the $64 question” I said

It was nighttime
Getting cooler
and I’d been drawn out of the house
by the bonfire
Coyote lit
in the middle
of my cul-de-sac

“The neighbors
will complain,” I said

“I sure hope so,” Coyote said
“and by the way,
sixty-four bucks
is too damn cheap”

“You should come here
and dance
It’s a full moon”

“I know,” I said.
“I just had an owl fly over my head.”

“You been listenin’
to your owls?” he asked, tearing down a picket fence
to feed the growing flames.

“Not as much
as I oughtta,” I confessed

“You know,” he said, watching the flames grow
“People think
I stole the secret of fire
so they could cook
food

“That ain’t it
at all
I mean, nothing against a bowl
of venison stew
in fact
everything
for it

“But really,
I stole fire
so people could stay warm
at night

“So they could stay
loose
and limber

“the same damn
reasons
they should curl up

“With each other.
and I learned that,”
he added, ripping at some dried rose bushes
and putting them in
“Out on Highway 99
around the time
I lost my stogie”

“It’s a cold world, boy
Don’t stay in it
too long alone”

About that time
we heard the sirens

“Maybe we’d better go in,” I said

“What? And miss the dance?”

Mark Williams
November-December 2009 Earth First!