The Dream of The World

by Christiane Pelmas My wild predator Cat companion Jet-black Artemis on four legs Comes racing home Up and over the patio fence

Coyote joy in yellow-green eyes Fat-cat tail swirling like a propeller on a high-strung speed boat

Five dive-bombing barn swallows Hot on her trail

For minutes the swallows rush the patio As she Now settled safely next to me Casually cleans all carnage From her front paws and face

And I watch in wonder At this swooping feathered fierceness In such small packages

Feeling exhilaration My heart pounding As if it were my life

Wanting to make this something ‘us’ against ‘them’

Yet there is nothing personal here

Only a primal agreement To protect borders as much for the other as for themselves While knowing That the very nature of life The unthinkable demand of it Insists that all borders get breached All sovereignty sacrificed Each individual life devoured and reconstituted In service of the one life

This one life It is a great shape shifter First it is a rabbit Then it is a fat coyote Dreaming rabbit Then it is scat Dreaming flowers Dreaming of butterflies

It is a woman Singing opera in the shower Then it is water Saturating ceiling panels Then it a tender green leaf Pushing itself up between driveway pebbles