The Coyote and the Man (Orpheus)

Orpheus and the Coyote

Copyright 06.10.10

Orpheus walked down to the Fundy Shore where wild crested waves raged and gales of wind roared, and flecks of sea foam dashed his face, stung his eyes. He spied a saddle-topped rock between green forest and roiling ocean and sat down to play. Reaching round his hip, from a pocket he withdrew a long but small “box” and placed it to his mouth. With an inward breath he stole the wind and with an outward breath it transposed into song, for he was the Lord of Music. Over his head birds without number were flying and fishes leapt out of the deep blue waters, won by the tuneful sound(1).

And the notes became words and hushed the rage of the storm; commanded dark clouds away and stilled leaves on trees, which bent closer, for language is a perpetual Orphic song(2). From between the tree trunks there appeared a lone coyote--creature of the dark of night, loping of day, and of small or large dramas in the woods of some lives. S/he stood panting. And studying. And ope’d gaping maw with glistening canines and deep from that throat there rose a mighty howl that rang through the trees and soared the hilltops and skittered over Fundy’s surface searching faraway shores.

Orpheus played on. And from behind bending trees slipped not one more coyote, but then there were two, then three, then four. And from each a howl joined the chorus which rose, careening, and filled the air with sound, and tumbled and broke and rose again, in concert with Orpheus’ thrall. And when the song of Orpheus trailed away, so did they. Like a sigh, with a whisper, in single file they were gone.

This was Orpheus: the pacifying and civilizing force of music and poetry(3), whose music breaks down rigid forms of nature, lending them new rhythms and dimensions(4).

He rose from the rock, and the stillness was palpable, as if it couldn’t believe what had just occurred. It was as if the sound lingered, in coyotes and seas, in birds and in trees, that he was the first to enthrall. As quixotic as it sounds, we know that he left, but is singing there still(6).

This is a “true” story. It is a depiction of an event that actually occurred on the Nova Scotia side of the Bay of Fundy where coyotes roam and have recently been dying in number by human devices, with the encouragement of the Minister of Natural Resources, both parties whom seem to believe that coyotes are “man-eaters” and they must be extinguished.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are paraphrased near-quotes from Shelley, Rilke, Virgil and Shakespeare, and also Michael Grant: “Myths of the Greeks and Romans”.