The Elk

One morning as a man and dog traveled an

Old dirt road through the mountains

An elk emerged from the briars

Among the ponderosa pine

Scarred black muzzle, lop-ears, gray flanks

Her eyes were also black

As the cold ancient stars and the ever dilating

Space between them

The dog barked and strained at the leash

Primitive blood recalling horns winded

A thousand savage chases

The elk regarded man and dog

Fearless and innocent

Her blood recalled nothing of the spear

She ambled along barbwire, hooves kicking up the ashes

Of last summer’s fire

Until she found a gap and darted into the pines

Fleeting shadow, always west

Years grind the mountains

His wife’s photograph

Reminds him of the great inferno

That scorched the cliffs of the valley

And of the black ash that curls in its wake

How dust lies upon dead roots of shelled trees

Waiting to fall to splinters when the wind comes down

Out of the north in October

The dust will remain for generations

Walking toward her means crossing scorched earth

Into darkness

The truth of it is

Bitterness is green sap flowing to the wound

Sometimes he dreams he is the elk

Thunder outside his tent

Is the report of a hunter’s rifle

He shambles, then flies

Euphoric with terror and longing

Beyond the break in the barbed fence

Pastures and hills and sky

Keep raveling

Farther than he’ll ever have or know