Fading Prints

(ahhhh) There used to be

a desert howl that shook my frame

A dusty trail,

a trickster's name

I'd scrape my claws against the red rock canyon stone

And swear that arid earth

was bone of my

bone

Now muddy creekbeds wash the dry clay out to sea

And something quiet pads between the birch tree

bark

The desert's getting quiet,

the sand is turning cold

And there's a different kind of silver taking hold

Looking down at fading prints upon the bank

I thank the scruffy ghost for every well I drank

Coyote slips into the brush behind the pine

While silver fox paws keep this steady heart in line

It felt like losing ground at first,

like going numb

To wonder where the wild hunger had gone from

Then morning frost caught fur of silver,

black, and white

A patient shadow stalking through the quiet night

Looking down at fading prints upon the bank

I thank the scruffy ghost for every well I drank

Coyote slips into the brush behind the pine

While silver fox paws keep this steady heart in line

(keep me in line)

Not dead, just resting in the sagebrush miles away

A shift of season underneath the winter gray

I do not mourn the paw that learned to change

Silver in the moss

Quiet in the pines (mm-mm-mm)