A yelp
halt
destination paused
I gasped for air- there was plenty of air.
Grey fur seemingly alive brushed by a breeze
Twitched a bit. Didn't really move.
Front legs side by side, to the side.
Back legs in a somehow dignified straddle--
Tail missing fur and as still as still ever can be.
------
I've always been drawn to the unknown lights
When they flicker off
When they dim and fade.
As abstract as money
As simple as a sphere
An eye half open
Not to look at me but it's like a deep pool. So I step in.
I thought fleetingly of naming the squirrel I found
Maybe Isabel, or Jake - but this whim was drowned by the dignity I fell into

It is so still

It is so silent

And I become a part, for an instant, of the obscene absence that is so tight-packed with empty
and eternity
And then I was everywhere
I was dark matter and breezes and the presence of moss and moist
I was tenderness and grief and the strength of a hurricane
And the brush of a milkweed pod. I was far and near and into all the cracks
Flowing in and back, around and through.
-------
And then I was out
I felt a bit lonely
A bit dismembered

But I noticed and watched the flies who landed darting around that eye-pool,
That covering of grey grasses and the sparse desert tail
Little workers
Hard at work
Going back and forth along their quick arc-like flight lines
Building and creating
The strange beauty of
Building something from nothing.