June 5, 2009

Rick works in the park, is the first to arrive every morning.

He calls us over. Tells us about tidying the beach at dawn after a hot and crowded weekend. Tells us how he heard a high querulous bark behind him:

Coyote, sitting on the hillside, calling.

Tells us how he watched. How Coyote called; a bark and a warbling howl.

Tells us how a second voice responded from across the beach and to the west. How a third voice warbled back from the well-kept neighborhoods.

Tells us how two coyotes appeared, one from a carefully tended yard, the other down an asphalt street. How they trotted over to the one who first called. How they danced their greetings and how they sang. Yodle and whine.

And how they turned into the shadows, silent.