Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Coyotes

Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate

In this week’s poem Leslie Moore, a poet and artist from Brooksville, considers the Maine coyotes who live, barely detectable, among us.

Coyotes by Leslie Moore

They hug the margins of fields,
slip into creases between trees,
glide across gravel roads at dawn or dusk,
bellies close to the ground, tails
trailing. We hardly know they are here, think
all of this is ours—the property, the shorefront,
the view—until moonless nights
when a choir of coyotes sings to the stars
and one paces the length of our driveway
leaving tracks in the snow and scat
where the dog and I are sure to find it.

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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2013 Leslie Moore. Reprinted from Coyote Lives in Maine, Geri Vistein, by permission of Leslie Moore. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.