The Coyote’s Song

We heard the coyotes calling one night when we were camping in the hills just beyond Sitting Bull Falls New Mexico. I had heard them before but not with you. Before they were like dogs yipping and disturbing the night. “Listen”, you said and were so pleased with their calling. You just looked at me and smiled as they called. With you, the calls were songs in the desert night. As they sang you told me about a dedication that J. Frank Dobie had written in one of your books. It said, “May you always live where you can hear the coyotes sing”. I’d not have understood that had I not listened to their desert songs with you. 

Tonight I am in New Mexico in the desert flats maybe fifty miles south of Silver City which tonight is gleaming in the clear night sky as coyotes sing in the distance. The little twinkling lights of the town are spread haphazardly across the sides of the mountain as if stars were taking a break from hanging from the sky.  You would like it here. But then, I’m not sure you aren’t here tonight as you so often seem to be. I swear in the desert wind I heard you call my name. Hold me, Mikey. If not in your arms, hold me in your thoughts, in your dreams.