Sequential Art
The Call
words copyright Sue Priest
The call of a coyote lingers on the air. I stand unmoving; my very presence is a
disturbance to the newly forming day. Inhale, exhale, tendrils of my breath swirl around
me like a fog clouding my viewpoint. Stillness seems to surround me, sounds of the
encrusted ice snapping and cracking as the river moves beneath it. The quiet solitude
around me is misleading, I think of it as stillness, but it’s not. The very earth beneath
my feet is always in motion.
I turn away the sound of cars on the highway intrude upon the silence, the stench
of incinerated waste wafts on the breeze. The light of a new dawn is streaking across
the horizon. Another day begins. Somehow I must fit myself into the structures that no
longer seem important to me. The memory of a heartbeat not my own, roots strong and
deep grow in my spirit. I struggle with words as I write this. The language itself seems
so far removed from what’s natural from the very essence of my being. With the tendrils
of my breath I grasp out for the words that aren’t really there.
