POET'S CREEK
   for Phil

   by Paula Coomer 

A meadow walking trail dotted on the map
for just me and you and, too, a great grey heron 
who flocks alone.  A bite of heaven 
which changes when you spot the paws of a cougar 
printed on the sand we are walking, and love 
makes us pick up rocks and sticks for clubs 
because we would fight death to save each other.  
Because love is bigger than any stupid cat.  But 
at the end of day paws on sand are all we've seen, 
and the trail back winds through miles of trees 
blackened, and we see how a forest fire makes wind.  
Winded trees blackened, dying so in a later spring 
mushrooms can grow from these graves full of downed 
life we measure in rings but were once breathing:  
spruce, larch, pine, ponderosa, and the seed 
that sprung them and this sudden death 
from dropped spark the earth's need to clean up 
its messes and pave a path for the next generation.  

Human; species:  you should visit and shed clothes 
and sink into water where the Nez Perce bathed.  I feel 
sorry for the billions who did not and never will learn 
the secret of deciphering scat.  And later we talked 
about this, how it felt, knowing you'd decided to draw 
blood the instant you saw its green-yellow eyes.  At least 
that's the color we imagined seeing holding the bead on it, 
pulling the trigger, watching its head blow back and the arc 
of it falling.  Later, surprising us both, a wise old guy 
recites poems from the camper next door with a pyre of books 
falling from the seats.  About what a conqueror he's been 
in his lifetime of perils.  The herbs in pots on the hood 
to ward away bears.  And his father who said, "Boy, when you 
ever going to quit the books?"  And it feels like my eyes 
turn green-yellow when he tells us he told him, "Never.  And 
never and never.  And never and never."