Porcupine at Dusk
by Ingrid Wendt Out of the bunch grass out of the cheat grass a bunch of grass waddles my way. Quill-tips bleached by winter four inches down: crown of glory dark at the roots: a halo catching the sun's final song: No way could such steady oblivion possibly live up to legend, whatever fear I might have had is gone, but still I stop Short on my after-dinner walk, no collision course if I can help it, thinking at first it's the wind, nudging a path out of the field Or one of a covey of tumbleweed lost like those today on the freeway, racing ahead of my car that whole long drive here to the banks of the Snake, to friends so close they know when to leave me alone. As though I were nowhere around, the porcupine shuffles the edge of the road, in five minutes crosses a distance I could have covered in less than one And disappears at last into cattails and rushes, sunset, a vespers of waterbirds, leavin...