The boy pondered the spot of ground:

low, soft, and brown.

Slightly sunken from rainwater

(what little had come that season).

The embrace of the earth

wrapped lightly around a single friend.

I’ll join you one day, if what’s said is true, he thought.

A large pine and its children

covered the softened patch of grass,

waving their arms each night in song

(he has witnessed this).

As he sought to ponder, his father walked past,

behind him,

carrying something to the truck.

“Don’t tell your mother. There were tracks;

I think coyotes got the body a couple nights ago.”