A Different Kind of Secret

We pushed Bush's speech out of our heads and took a walk. We didn't think about the raid on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq. Not that, nor the additional 92,000 troop build up that was put on the table by Defense Secretary Gates. Nor the litany of mistakes that finally compelled Keith Olbermann to call Bush a presidency of Cliff Notes. We just walked off our discontent-- it's our mantra, our yoga, our exercise of sheer will to stay focused on the things before us. The frigid air pulls us back into our bodies. The slick icy path demands our attention.

We walked the road pictured above. It's the path we take to Chimacum Creek. A little further ahead on the left is a canyon, and past there we head down on the right to the creek. When we get to the canyon, something catches Roger's eye. He says quietly, "There's a coyote on the other side of those bushes, up there." I look up. See nothing. Then, the coyote comes into the clearing and stops to look at us, two humans who are looking back. He stands for a minute not moving at all. I take four photographs. They all look the same.
For us in that moment the plans of madmen recede into the yellow eyes of a wild thing. A wild thing disappearing into the hills is but one way to balance the haunted human world we have created. We don't idealize the coyote's wild world. We know its tragedies, the cost in blood to all the prey animals. But here there are no lies. No secrets about rationales and missions.
There is just this, a different kind of secret-- the coyote's secret. The place he runs and hunts. The place he hides so that a year goes by before we see him again. The coyote spins around and hightails it up the trail. He never looked back.

Good Planets Reminder!!
I hope you have been saving your spectacular good planet shots to send to January's host, the incomparable Laura of Somewhere in NJ. Please send her your photos depicting the beauty of our planet for this Saturday's Good Planets. Her email is lc-hardy at comcast dot net. Thanks everyone!