In the afternoon we go out to the pasture, 
wandering to the creek
in a haphazard line 
as crooked as the muddy water 
that calls us out.
The dog is old now, 
careful in her gait and deaf.
She does not hear the call 
of red-tailed hawks or mourning doves,
no turtle splash or cottonwood chimes.
Instead, with twitching nostrils
she ponders echoes 
spun out during the woolly night
and follows furtive clues to
secrets I will never gather.
The whisper of coyotes padding light as smoke
over grassy banks into the long chase,
the scream of bone and fur as jackrabbits sprint
for bramble cover—
the heavy cross of survival
or the small dying.


© 2008 by Barbara Ann Adams. All rights reserved.