the summer held him
warmly as a mother might
kept his muscles taught teeth
clean eyes focused and brilliant
then rain came
falling slowly with fir needles
from the higher boughs
the afternoons became hazes
stones in the roadside grass
chipped his teeth
in the night he either walked
or stared. after the eighth
day of rain he walked the high river
but got tired before daylight
rested in a cedar hollowed by fire
while outside the wet darkness shivered
then the snow came but no sleep
on the first night he stood in a clearing
near a dead hunter's cabin
sharp ice cracked around his lips
one eyelid frozen closed
ribs like dead sticks under his fur
he stared at the darkness on the edge
of the clearing and it closed in
he saw the ocean once when he was younger
it was the only other time
he'd ever dreamt there was a god
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