hear my song, my brother spirits,
hear my song, oh my sisters
hear the song of the lone survivor, the last of our kind, the one who hid away
hear a song from the heart of the new age that consumed the old,
ate it up with fire & iron & oil, mastered & poisoned &
remade it anew
hear me, all you who are now gone forever &
live only in my memory
hear me,
whom the new age has eaten as well
we left for roswell in the belly of
a greyhound from
los alamos, sleeping among the baggage with the
road humming one foot below the floor,
my tired children & me,
their pillow
we slept &
i dreamt i was young
again, pawing & smelling & seeing & listening & pouncing,
hiding in the wild places, innocent of death, a gray kit
ready to gnaw at the bones of the world—
racing here &
there, up & down, around & below & into
& out of,
master of all there was
in darkness i awoke to the mechanical odors of our
overnight den, the slow stir of breath against my fur, the
scent of my children's last meal on their
mouths, the burning of their bodies against me
in the endless rumble of the diesel engine & the whine of
the highway & the roar of the wind all around, i
awoke & knew that this was the
price
this was what i took on in exchange
for my old ways, to survive in this new age—
a burden i will carry forever, a weight
i dare not put down
a long age ago, in a
naïve moment when
iron & oil & fire were pressing close,
grinding the old life beneath black smoke & gunshots &
screaming railroad wheels, i had a very
clever idea, oh
i, the cleverest of them all, i would
escape the great change—
i would hide in the new age & endure, i would never
be found
never fade like the golden prairie,
never fall like the green forests, never
suffocate like the silver rivers & blue sky,
no
i would never be found
& oh
the cleverest part of this cleverest of all my
clever ideas was that i would
hide in full view, right there before them, in plain sight of
the unknowing, the unseeing, the uncaring, the
unstoppable humans
right in
front of
them all
foolproof,
yes, it was foolproof, no eye or nose or ear or claw, no
hand or gun would ever find me
oh, the great cleverness of me
the oil & iron & fire came & swept away all
the old things as if they had never been, reshaped the world into a landscape unfamiliar, but
i hid away &
no one found me,
ever
all
so long ago
wiser now, & far too late, i
lie in the belly of this huge iron beast &
rethink that strategy, i mull the long trails & back roads &
superhighways down which it has led me
i turn that clever
trick over & over in the corners of my
mind & try to
imagine what could have been, what might have been,
what would never be
foolproof the plan, aye, but
the price for surviving the change was to change with it
the price was involvement in the
new world, becoming integral to it, the debt paid out drop by drop with the red of
my soul, paid out over minutes &
hours & days & seasons & years, in endless cycles of time
forever
unannounced, unwanted,
the changes came upon me, the lone survivor, & soon
i was no longer who i
was
the changes stung, it wrung
out my heart, it squeezed tears from my eyes until i had none left to weep, &
it did so with ungentle hands at
unwelcome moments
& at the same time by slow degrees it
filled me with
something alien, terrible &
new, a change i almost missed though
it was right in front of me, & i
was no longer
me
my children turn in their sleep, stretch & yawn, snuggle close, subside
i have paid the price & lived, yet
wonder if the price was worth it;
there is so much now to fear—i, who once feared nothing,
the cleverest of them all
i am afraid
because they are not like me, my children
they are mortal,
vulnerable,
human, & i am—
i was—
not
that was the real price,
what changed below my fur, that was the real price of
survival:
to care,
to love, to become
one of them who were once my enemies,
to be no longer me alone
but them as well
i lie awake & wonder if the price was worth it,
if it will be worth the endless fears & doubts & worry, the
pain that is past & yet to come, but
it is far too late
even if i could i would not change a moment of it
& lose the small hearts that beat
so close to mine
in roswell we walk to a burgerworld, where my
children go inside to use the restrooms, then eat breakfast from
the dumpster in back—
i know what is safe & what
is not
we walk toward the ufo museum in the warming air as the
orange sun rises,
find souvenirs to fill my children’s pockets,
talk about small things
your legs were twitching all night, says courtney in a tone of reproach
i was dreaming about rabbits, say i
i was dreaming about the basement at grandma & grandpa lane’s house,
says adrian,
remember when we were on grandma’s pottery wheel & we got to
spin around & around?
yeah, that was cool
lawndale
(i pretend to groan)
oh, you liked it
you got to chase squirrels
yes, there were a lot of squirrels there, tasty ones too
ugh
i like burgerworld a lot better than eating squirrels
you wouldn’t know, you’ve never had squirrel, have you?
i just know
eww
we find money on the street & tour the ufo museum, then find the public library where
i send the children inside to read—
one hour a day whenever possible, that is the rule
while outside, in a place where no one can see, i change shape
before i walk inside as well, nod to grown-ups,
& use a spare computer:
read the news, check the weather, peek in the empty chat room for area 51,
find my e-mail
nogobonzo wants to know who i really am
maybe that little talk we had the other night was unwise, but i cannot undo it now
why did i say that? why did i almost give my secret away?
i am not alone in this world, i have my children, i should not have to reach out to
mortals for company—
or do i want to be found?
others have known me in other shapes, small world
that it is some of those who know me in one form have known me in another,
never suspecting—
do i want to be found?
others too have shapes they adopt when it suits them,
they cannot hide from my senses:
esmeralda, who claims to work for the space agency, is a teenage girl, a loner, a doubter, so
easy to see through—i knew her mother once,
i can tell even through this lightning medium that she is the daughter of
one i knew named helen, long ago in middleton, who called me by my true name; she
wanted to lead a young tribe into an age of peace in
the days when people could say such things without laughing—
esmeralda, cynical child of a flower child, who adopts
indifference to guard her heart
icuthere, who sees too far & too much, human yet not, a different sort of being
neither earthly nor alien, a dweller in a neighboring universe, not as
much of a saint as she pretends, but holy
nonetheless
sue naami, a lawyer who hints that she has no hands, a mortal but not a human, a hunter
who fears she will one day be the last
of her kind,
like me
& the clever euro-psion, a homonym for my name in greek, urocyon,
hiding right in front of them all—
curiouser and curiouser the world in these latter days
nogobonzo’s e-mail is left unanswered
troubled, i stare at the monitor &
think of highland instead, this nowhere place where the
others of our curious little tribe have chosen to go,
all for the fears of one
should i go there too?
i weigh my options with unease as
intuition whispers wordless doubt without detectable cause or
proof
once before did i have this nameless misgiving, a long age ago,
when first i smelled the oil & fire & iron
could it be that
this loud era of man, this faster-than-sight age of wonder, this time of oil & fire & smoke & machine draws
to a sudden close?
must i pay a new price now for survival? what new cost is being calculated? has not
enough been wrung from my heart? i bare my teeth &
curse the moment when i surrendered to this age,
curse the impulse to see for myself what these humans liked so much to do,
curse their mother’s green eyes, her smile, her willingness, her body as warm & inviting as her name,
curse that moment of weakness—
though i would not change a moment of it,
not one second, ever
i get up
time to go kids, say i
we find a place outside where i take back my old shape, & i remember again
when my children thought i was a dog
sometimes i pity their frustrated mother, who searches for them when they are with me,
but i do not pity her often
i pity more myself, who almost missed them
where are we going? asks courtney on my right
to highland, say i
why? asks adrian on my left
i have no idea, i tell him,
no idea at all
