Coyote

One night while I lived in Spokane, Washington I was up late and think I saw a coyote out of my kitchen window. Afterwards I had a dream and this is what I wrote when I woke up.

Coyote

By Susan Fleming Allen

 

I see a coyote in

my dream.

Tawny fur over

narrow bones. Running

away like a

thief, three legs in the air

at once, a kangaroo limp, an outcast

from society.

 

In the distance I see a field.

There are three horses in this field.

The coyote startles them, chases

them and taunts them, all fangs and growl.

The horses run in frantic circles.

 

I watch this scene from a high

window in a stone castle,

too far away to warn the

horses or the children in white dresses wearing bonnets

playing in the grassy field.

I want to yell,

but fall mute.

Resign myself to witness.

 

Parents run from the other side of the knoll

and take up their children into their arms and

quickly climb into the covered wagon.

Now, I am in the wagon pulling children in

out of their parent's grateful arms.

The coyote leaps onto

the wagon's edge and turns into

a collie.

 

His scrawny body now filled

out, his fur fluffy, a red collar

around his neck. His tail

wags and the children clap

their pudgy little hands together.

Reviews

[Susan C. Allen]

Thanks Jacob...I think we comfort ourselves in dreams.
Susan

[jacob erin-cilberto]

love the transition of the outcast coyote becoming the lovable collie...and the children clapping and laughing..

if only most danger could turn into something welcomed and peaceful.

but the poem also expresses so well the situations in which we want to help someone but are helpless to do so...
but then in dreams, things often turn out differently from real life.

nicely done, Susan.