In rhododendrons, something wakes and stirs.
Tar-paper shacks on blackened slopes incline
toward wind; the dogs go rigid, ears upturned—
their master tilts his lamp, a narrow shine.
Their orange coats quiver in the hollow;
their howls pour downward, spill through trees.
A pine bows under weight it cannot follow—
some unseen quarry shifting in the canopy.
The grass at field’s edge ripples, breaks, reforms
in waves and eddies; stillness, then again.
The dogs regroup beneath the brush, their forms
held taut between recall, scent and strain.
The moon rolls past the clouds without a sound—
headlamps form a constellation on the ground.