The Boneyard Camp

A couple of hours here and there
Over the past month to steal away
Over the hill to the boneyard's edge
To set up a new camp on familiar land

Signs of fresh deer kill greet upon entering
Tell of struggles played out upon the earth
Blood soaks and stains the soft gray dirt
Coyotes now content with their search

Black, scraggly jagged feathers
Standing upright in the gravel
Torn violently from their owner
Tell of fights amongst the crows

I begin to scratch a camp above the refuge
Of trails and beds and dens and wallows
The boneyard claims another soul
Brought home to rest again

And a final resting place as good as any other
Here between the granite and manzanita
Under oaks craggy branched and furrowed
Meadow grasses sprouting lazily in the shade

Understory of the blessed upon
Among the downward rolling hills
Where tree seems to grow from rock
Weathered gravestones in all their graces

I couldn't think of a place much better
Than here in the wooded glades
Reflecting sunlight off the surfaces
In the mid-winter greenings of the shades