I’m camping, and the desert divot nearby is a scar of prickly pear, cacti, and sharp-edged boulders. Tonight it’s dark, stars are twinkling, and its filled with coyotes singing, rapping, and yipping a song of their own. I think it could be their version of “Party and Bullshit” by the Notorious BIG.
(Photo: desert-bleached coyote jaw) 
Indigenous people revered and feared coyote. Like its design, coyote is mixed bag. On one hand the mighty trickster stood for folly, comedy, or good luck. But coyote could also bring humiliating failure, misfortune, or disaster. American Indian lore bubbles with tales of coyote’s mystique and lessons of its big appetite, small vision, and aimlessness.
If you’ve been to the American Southwest you’ve seen coyote trotting, trotting . . . always trotting. Coyote is the scruffy, desert-worn, slinky one; the raggle-taggle gypsy of the plains and scarred, scrubby deserts.
Coyote is the product of compromise or committee; no single artist would fashion such a sad, unmatched composite of fur and bone: snout too long, ears too big, legs too skinny, fur too matted and messy, eyes and face the bemused markings of vexation and confusion . . . perhaps its coyote smiling.
Even so, some creation stories sing high praises of coyote for he tricked monster, the world-destroyer, to save himself and all of us. Lobos disparatado (absurd, goofy, wild, coyote) is the back-room ally of the two-legged ones able to disembody and send its spirit to carry out pranks or offer gifts.
Some creation stories tell of coyote bringing the gift of fire for two-legged ones, or coyote who out schemed his enemies, and how the wily coyote detached his penis and sent it upriver to have a party only to return and reattach to his body.
Coyote, the ID and shadow of society, the underside of our fashions and flashy inventions, well-fed and well-groomed children, models, and athletes; coyote is the dark spot we cannot remove even with our poisons, fires, and guns.
Coyote persists, cry as we might with Lady Macbeth, “Out damn spot,” manifesting to me jn the wild – in spite of all obstacles – as an essential element of camping: fire, water, wind, earth, moon, shadow, and coyote. He/She/It – Trickster Coyote – has been here the last two nights, reminding me of a song from 1967 by a trickster band called The Doors.
“Love Me Two Times,” v. 3
“Love me two times baby, love me twice today
love me two times baby, cause I’m goin’ away
love me two times girl, one for tomorrow, one just for today
love me two times, I’m goin’ away
love me two times, I’m goin’ away.”
By songwriters in the coyote spirit: Jim Morrison, John Paul Densmore, Raymond D. Manzarek, Robert A Kreiger. Among the remakes, The Dead Milkmen with “Bitchin’ Camaro,” is most unique.
Coyote notes:
Sand and bleached bone cradle the desert floor
and the cries of Coyote give it music.
August 2002
Over the years, I’ve learned about the eerie sound of the Huron Mountain’s coyotes surrounding the Big Bay area. He told me how they communicate in the night, sometimes luring domestic dogs into their circle with cries and well-feigned yelps of distress only to level a deadly ambush.
March 2003
Now my goal is to fill my life with poems; with stories of coyote,
tales of Ulysses, songs of joy and sorrow.
December 2005
I am the hermit of Wetmore’s Pond
I am the coyote walking around
I am the old man singing songs
I am the wolf beginning to howl.
August 2006
I wondered what he meant by that; although, in some ways I think I know. It’ the coyote so don’t get too cocky or too worked up about how “good” you’re doing . . . or anything else.
August 2013
I can’t answer but now
I fill my life with poems
with stories of coyote,
tales of Ulysses, songs of joy and sorrow.
May 2014
“Take coyote with you into your music,” my guide said.
And I tried, no longer approaching music with the
grim determination of a goal setter.
October 2015
Zygopteras’ and Anisopteras’ were in the desert long before I was. Cheyenne, wild horses, and coyotes singing in the night were also there first.
December 2017
Randy says
Good piece!