Marybeth Holleman: "Yesterday, on the Familiar Trail"

                             A routine walk, you know the kind: your mind
                             is far away, and it’s just your bones walking,
                             marking the rhythm of heartbeat to footstep.
                             It’s always like this right before you see them,

                             the ones who never take an absent-minded step,
                             staring at you with heads lowered, ears erect,
                             paws spread wide and hackles half-raised,
                             golden eyes deciding whether you’re predator
                             or prey. What other category do they need?
                             What other thought? It’s you,

                             with your thousand and one concepts, who must
                             step back toward that joy-sap rising, step back
                             into the only world that is.

"Yesterday, on the familiar trail" by Marybeth Holleman. Text as published in Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim (Vol. 1, No. 2, Summer Solstice, 2010). Presented here by poet submission. Check out Marybeth's blog, Art and Nature.

Art credit: "Grey Wolf," image by unknown photographer apparently at www.calxibe.com.