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.
A car crawls slowly up behind
capturing the remains of a wilderness,
smart-phones gripped in hands of small
Homo Sapiens snap at the ends of arms
thrust through windows trying to catch
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 clouds exuding burnt
Cenozoic scents?
by Jim Culleny
Oct 31, 2010
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