Pyrocene Life

all year
packrats
like never before
then all the snakes
they attract
both
tunnel
right under
the coyote fence

you can try
all the preventatives
from peppermint
to dried bobcat piss
but it’s a
sisyphean battle
nowadays

just this saturday
had to save
sweet Emily hummingbird
and her one new baby
who survived birth
in yet another
record shatter heat wave
nested inches
by my window

from some
furious raging jay
who like all beings
plant or animal
had enough of
ten plus degrees above
normal for a month
in pretty much
the driest summer
ever

then this morning
out back to
refresh nectar for
the feeders
beheld low to the ground
slinking down the
rocks right to me
twenty yards away
a mountain lion
cougar
panther
puma concolor
big cat
big big cat
but mangy
thin and dehydrated
desperate as it gets for
her and for me

she at last elected to
head back
up the arroyo
to the ridgeline
and onward for
a better source of
lifesaving water
and maybe even a
morsel of
more sure and
less contested food

cool got me through
but my adrenaline
coursed
like never before
for more
than an hour

is rare
to get knocked from
apex
to second place
in a split instant
but over the years
in the wild southwest
you see when
water goes from
dry to dire
how your odds rise

the river
is maybe a mile away
the arroyos are
nature’s highway
but can be
like a maze

poor thing

we can only hope she
finds a way

❏