I walked in the pines. A coyote On the brink of the canyon pointed a nose At infinity filled with planets And washed by floods of the moon. He bayed his awe of the vastness, His harsh uneasy fear of the strangeness Of night stretching unknowably Out and beyond him forever. He shrank away to his hunting Or mating. And I, on the brink there, Faced, as he, the universe, And knew that his cry was my cry. |