Welcome

Coyote in Winter

It was the winter of 1983 up in Sherman Township. We celebrated any day the temperature staggered over zero, twenty degrees was balmy. Bourbon in your coffee was a sensible precaution, and the Muscovy duck spent her time sitting in the sun on the threshold of the front door. Her deposits made for a swift slide to an uncertain landing. On such cold nights, you might think my friend Coyote would have been a welcome companion, curled around my feet as we sit before the fire. You would be wrong. He sent me one postcard… from Bermuda. I burned it in the wood stove.

44º North

Autumn is the smell
of trampled maple leaves,
wood smoke,
and the shadow
of distant snow.
Winter waits
like an understudy
behind the curtain
of November.