The Forest for the Trees

by William Huggins

Photo by joel protasio on Unsplash

Three nights in a row coyotes wake me. In our tent, the thin membrane that allegedly protects us from the wild outside, my wife and daughter and three rescue dogs slept through the howls. Several times I fell back to sleep, briefly, only to rise with heart pounding to their wild calls. They ran and sang at least a mile away, carried on the cool night air, moving counter-clockwise around us.

Three nights in a row coyotes wake me. In our tent, the thin membrane that allegedly protects us from the wild outside, my wife and daughter and three rescue dogs slept through the howls. Several times I fell back to sleep, briefly, only to rise with heart pounding to their wild calls. They ran and sang at least a mile away, carried on the cool night air, moving counter-clockwise around us.

Once, half-awake, at the edge of a dream, I thought they were calling to me. Perhaps they were. Only they know.Now I hang in a hammock between two piñon pines, a light breeze mo…