COYOTE

Yesterday I saw a coyote.

I had just come from around the lake and I was on the north side of the field at Lakeside Middle School. The coyote was all the way across the field, and he was looking.

I was so startled that I did not continue walking around the field. I stopped and considered the coyote and I walked back a bit towards the lake.

The coyote didn’t move.

I saw two children on the blacktop walking towards the portable trailer-type classrooms. I thought, they must see the coyote, but they gave no indication that they did. They didn’t act frightened. They didn’t scream.

I continued to look at the animal and finally I began to walk around the field, and I knew then that, somehow, the coyote wasn’t real.

This was true. He wasn’t real. He was there to scare away the Egyptian geese.

On our lake there are two kinds of geese: Canadian and Egyptian. The Canadian geese are quite large and they live in flocks of eight or more, while the Egyptians are considerably smaller and live only in pairs.

The Egyptian geese live in a duprass.

The Egyptian geese are quite mean and their honk is like a whisper only melancholy; they walk as if theirs are the kingdom’s feet.

I walked around the field and onto the blacktop. I remarked to a teacher that I had thought the coyote was real.

It’s not, she said.

*

At dawn there were missiles flying over the lake, launched from that very field. The missiles were bound for Iraq but some of them went awry and exploded over us. Everyone was running. I had to jump from the top of a high building onto a ladder swaying and when I looked down the ladder was full of people and they did fall and I did jump and I did fall.

It was the field and it was the desert, it was Las Vegas. It was the Ivanpah Valley, it was Pahrump.

*

This morning I did not walk around the lake. I took a different path. I walked directly to the bridge and to Tiger Island, a small island down a stone staircase in the center of the bridge. I sat on the cement bench facing south. I saw two Egyptian geese at the lagoon.

I saw two vultures fly through the sky. I saw one dead fish.

The fish was a white fish, floating as a cane in the shallow water.

And when I walked back up the staircase, I saw a fire in the distance, to the right of where the mountain side is cleared and barren, as its substance is being used to fill a hole just below it, where our trash is buried.

I ran home to get my camera and the kids were out at Lakeside Middle School. They were in groups sitting on all the lawns and they were receiving a lesson from their teachers and from Irvine Police Officers about being nice to others. They should use kind words. They should keep their hands and their bodies to themselves. There was music playing all over the school, to make it a kind of energetic event, and the music was the pop music about being in love.

A boy on the sidewalk said hello as I was walking back to the bridge with my camera and I pointed to the smoke in the sky.

When did that happen? He said.

It is happening now.

I took pictures of the cloud ballooning over the field and I took pictures from the bridge. The cloud was ringing as a bell. It was singing and dancing as the sun.

*

Dear Moonsberry,

Your name need not be on the wall; everyone knows the bank is yours.

*

Dear Joseph,

The duprass is empty.

*

Dear Wendie,

The lion is father to the son.

*

Dear Rabbit,

Run.