Devotional

Yellowstone sunset - photo by Pamela Breedlove House

Wolf Moon by Mary Oliver

Now is the season

of hungry mice,

cold rabbits,

lean owls

hunkering with their lamp-eyes

in the leafless lanes

in the needled dark;

now is the season

when the kittle fox

comes to town

in the blue valley

of early morning;

now is the season

of iron rivers,

bloody crossings,

flaring winds,

birds frozen

in their tents of weeds,

their music spent

and blown like smoke

to the stone of the sky;

now is the season

of the hunter Death;

with his belt of knives,

his black snowshoes,

he means to cleanse

the earth of fat;

his gray shadows

are our and running – under

the moon, the pines,

down snow-filled trails they carry

the red whips of their music,

their footfalls quick as hammers,

from cabin to cabin,

from bed to bed,

from dearmer to dreamer.