Driving home last night,
I saw,
loping ‘cross the road like he owned it,
a wild coyote-dog on the hunt.
Always, at night time,
there are deer and fox and squirrel,
prey and predator down here
near the North Carolina beaches
where frolicing child and juvenile white shark
share the same roiling border between sand and surf.
I often offer up a prayer for both,
for each must live or die trying
to fill their slot in the scheme.
Of course,
it is easier to cheer for doe and fawn
to make it through too tomorrows dawn
than for the sharp toothed, grinning predator
who must kill to live
or go hungry for another night,
or, in passing,
almost as an after-thought,
grab a tasty black-fox squirrel
for a snack on the way back.
Homebound to her hungry brood,
her cubs waiting, whining,
full of faith in their mother,
but not in any meat in their stomachs.
For them, there is not always a meal on the table,
neither milk nor honey,
the diminishing forest their mothers only Dollar General,
ubiquitous but with slim pickings….
Nothing but empty plates and the natural way of things.
For our Mother is not kind, to anyone.
Come to think about it,
neither am I!
Thoughtlessly driving over the crushed corpse
of a recently run-over raccoon,
schmeared on the road
like Skippy Peanut Butter, Extra Crunchy, on toast.
I ignore that soft “Dump-bump, Dump-bump”.
Just another rise in the road….
A weed patch growing between the cracks in the concrete,
the disintegrating roadways of our lives.
