Remembrance Nineteen
Somewhere near a coyote
calls
Hopeless love for the moon
above.
We put her in an earthen
grave
And filled it with dirt
and our farewells.
The coyote’s hymn infuses
me
With melancholy. I
am sad;
There’s discord clanging
in my head.
A voice declares this
should not be,
That I’m alive and she is
not.
I flounder lost in
nighttime gloom
Huddled in a darkened room
Recalling how she loved
her cat.
The hapless coyote tries
again
To woo the moon with
ballads. Fool
He is to hope, for he will
fail
To win the stony-hearted
moon.
The coyote, a North American wolf-like animal, is very vocal. Its most iconic sound consists of a howl emitted by solitary individuals. (Its name is derived from the Nahuatl "coyotl," meaning "barking dog.") It was especially respected in Mesoamerican cosmology as a symbol of military might, and may even have been a precursor to the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl.
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