barks to me that I must go on.
I am trembling, weak, deep-stung?
I feel lost among dark stones?
She laughs at me in silver ripples,
tells me with her full red fur
I’m the poet she has needed
to call the world with careful cunning
into recognition of the wild
born straight from farthest star to dust.
We flutter she says with her yelp.
Most humans think they are aware
but our breath melds with wings
seeking milkweed in the fields
where we dig deeply, fiercely strong.
She barks at me again, her laugh
a promise my soul will survive:
body gone to earth’s dark reach,
but ghost a flash of tail, sky’s trust.
Katharyn Howd Machan
Katharyn Howd Machan, writing and publishing for more than 50 years, lives and teaches in Ithaca, NY with beloved spouse and fellow poet Eric Machan Howd. She directed the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, served as Tompkins County’s first poet laureate—and bellydances.