There is a green gate
and usually there is
at least one dog's leash
lost
hanging there, waiting,
failing.
I like to pick up
the extra poop
because this
is my backyard.
The gravel trail goes right
for a straighter, harder descent.
The little track left
lets the imagination wander
up to the manzanita line
wishing for and wishing against
a few coyotes.
Each step could lose the topography.
I am careful
and I fall well.
I would like this poem
to be about the landscape;
I do not know how to know this place
without my own face
planting my own eyes
on this pair of ravens.
So, this poem is about
these hills and this creek
and it cannot help being about
a father and his dog and his son
out for another
out and back.
Roman Ryan 