Survival Guide
The wolf never came to the door,
though we imagined it howling.
Somehow the lights stayed on.
The chuck-will’s-widow’s whistle vanished
from summer nights, yet still we listen at dusk
and dawn for the owls’ duet—hoot, cackle and caw—
wake to imprinted wren, thrush, mourning dove,
but also birdsong we can’t name,
mysterious as the universe we’ll never fathom,
having relinquished the ghost
of knowing to constellations
we’ll never see, to voices dreamed
but never heard, or heard no more—
yet, too, that haunting cry, airglow,
the occasional river of stars.
