Ordinary Wind and the Sound of Coyotes

Breezes become insistent and push outward towards a new season, the desert stretching from a brief springtime to the edge of extremes. Thankfully, the wind arrives and departs for a bit of refreshment, as a prelude to summer.

Spring is the mild season, a period of anticipation and restraint.

April is still too early for higher elevations, if one wishes to avoid late snowfalls and the freezing darkness of night. With that, I remain for a time in the desert, knowing that its ordinary winds will suffice.

A thing of seasons and time, the cool air is silent and moves without any predictable pattern, as it should. Like the midnight cry of coyotes, who vanish into sparse tree lines by sunrise, the wind remains unknown.

Then the dogs emerge.

Suddenly, we hear the echoing laughter that mocks prey,

as cackles erupt and fade, at first,

in the near distance and then beyond,

howls and shrieks moving farther and farther into the dust of neighboring spaces.

Silence returns.

Spring winds offer reassurance, softly, as night creatures linger in memory.