I woke with dread in my gut and before I got far up the road
A pretty creature, sleek and ochre with a black-ash tipped tail,
Maybe a ferret or a type of weasel, ran out in front of my wheels.
I thought it might turn and dash back or speed up and make it through,
But it ran without alteration and I felt it hit a wheel.
I looked up but the vehicle behind me was already over it.
So a thing with desires and some sort of awareness came to an end.
I drove on, higher, through the cinder cone and lava plateaus.
The flows here were recent, so recent geologically
That the pine and aspen in these high country basalt landscapes
Look like survivors of the stones that overwhelmed them,
Although the freshest black rocks that tumbled stopped
At least one to five thousand years ago,
And the trees just got a grip in the past few centuries.
One handsome pronghorn stood in those pine shadows in basalt rubble,
Alone and engaged in no apparent behavior other than breathing.
It seemed improbable to me, that a creature of grass and speed
Was so high in wooded country and near so many bow hunters
On recon with their pickup trucks and roaring ATVs,
But what do I know of how life goes?
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