We fish for them with our voices, and by landing one, a pair, we hope to halt the chainsaws. But all we hear tonight are warm wind on dry glass, the resonant blips of nighthawks, the bedlam chatter of poorwills, and something more sinister in the woods. A sunset worth witnessing from the top of a peak in the High Plateaus, and the wind, an elk horn, coyotes in thick timber, answering my calls. But night comes quickly, and I must descend two thousand feet without benefit of trail and hope my wife, who has the lowland traverse, doesn t get lost or twist her ankle. We meet at the appointed time and drive back to town.
Irrigation sprinklers arc like eyebrows in the night.
Great Horneds have deigned to live among us, forage in the fields we tend, perch on power poles, raise young in our trees. As though the spruce speak to each other between streetlight cones of yellow light. As though without them trees would have no reason, no tongue, no time. I stop and they feed thanks to my accomplice lights and get out slowly, close enough to touch them. I sense a warm wind, the river s low roar, a silent end for yellow moths, the ancient dance of hunter and hunted.