Alive

Alive

Coyote leaps across the road and
                                    as most do
                                    if not all
                        makes it
            into the dead weeds which are
                        his own color
                                    and safe.

Quick
without panic
                        he is
            though obviously stressed
            though not quite sure of himself
                                    beautiful
                        in his rough drab dun fur
                                                and fully
            alive

Always it gives us a slight
                        neuro-electrical tingle of
                                    exultation
                                                to see him
                                                survive
                        then vanish somehow
                        into virtually no cover

How does he do that?

I think
            the more intense life is
            the more transparent so that
                        it seems an
                                    apparition
            among the stolid opaque ghosts

Among us

Unless like coyote
            this is not
                        the world
                        we were wired for either

            and we are also
                        beautiful
beautiful in our thin insignificant skin
                        though under stress
                        uncertain

and even if we seldom notice
            being so preoccupied by
                                    just making it