To the Hunted God

 Oh, Coyote

I heard your soul cry, one night

It was deep winter

far beyond the dark threshold

of winter solstice.

Your voice a frantic wail

and a sorcerer’s laugh, together.

You were alone.

We are crucifying you, Coyote

(Not just once a year, but every day)

Because trickster is alien to the white man.

Our eyes are blind to the coyote-face of Jesus,

so again we kill a God.

You die for our sins, brother.

You pay so dearly for our domestication;

for your ability to adapt;

to infiltrate;

to evade;

to survive.

Like that other God, you are a paradox;

growing stronger in death,

forged on the crucible of persecution

into an ever-greater embodiment of our Shadow.

You had this all planned out, didn’t you?

You can smell us coming from a mile away.

You have learned from us

yet we have not—in return—learned from you.

If we stopped to listen to you, Coyote

We might discover how to walk between worlds.

Maybe if we stopped hunting you, brother

We would give the Divine

more space

to hunt us.