Fugitive
big brown bison walks the white line
of a two-lane, black eyes scanning for a sign,
regarding asphalt he wonders
what happened to the grass
how did this black ribbon come to bisect
my meadow between talus and hundred-foot pines
and where are the columbine?
he asks no one in particular because
not even the alpha male in a herd would know
as a car crawls slowly up behind
capturing the remains of a wilderness,
and smart phones gripped in the hands of small
homos sapiens click & snap at the ends of arms
thrust through windows catching
an outlaw bison who broke from a farm,
whose humped shade steps like a rope-walker
down the white line’s length wondering
where the stillness went
where are the laurel and clover?
what are these beasts
that glide like murmuring ghosts along
this scar in my pasture clicking like crickets
trailing a burnt Cenozoic scent?
Jim Culleny
© Oct 31, 2010