I came back from the city on the redeye again. Dawn from row 8 coach class and the clouds out the plane window dark purple like the sea then cotton candy pink (and then it was morning above the land).
Later. No moon tonight. Just black on the prairie and in the hills, and with the silence you hear the frogs in Kenny’s Pond. Crickets and frogs make a layer like something settling after a storm; that layer sings out there in the pitch black. Then the coyotes. (Here you say, “ky oats.”) “The coyotes must be hunting something again,” is what we’d say but tonight I’m alone.
The coyote packs sound like the pow-wow music you pick up on the radio when you drive west of here on the interstate—the high, singing chant. I love the sound of it and I’m glad to be here in the dark. Alone … no, I’m not glad of that. But here in the dark, yes.
It’s 1am so it’s the 4th of July now. (The coyotes and frogs don’t care and I don’t either.) I like the X song “4th of July” where John Doe sings “on the porch I smoked a cigarette alone/Mexican kids were shooting fireworks below/hey baby, it’s the 4th of July.” His song’s not about the 4th of July. Mine either.