Coyoté collects

 The best way to predict the future
is to invent it.

I


Coyoté saw Owl across the wash.
He seemed to be trying to open something.
Coyoté wondered what it might be.

Then Owl held up a framed print. Yellow.
That's about all
Coyoté could see, squiggly yellow.

This was too much, what was Owl up to?

Owl leaned the print against a mesquite tree
and stood back. Slowly, he shook his head side
to side. Wings went bent and toward his hips.

Coyoté crept closer.
And could see the black squiggles among the yellow
on the left side. Then he stepped on a twig - snap.

Owl turned
and stared at the hunched
Coyoté.
He just said, "it's called 'Yellow Painting'."

"And it is,"
Coyoté replied,
"mostly."

Owl turned it sideways, leaned it against the mesquite again.
Stepped back and stared.
Slowly, he shook his head.

Art is too serious
to be taken seriously.


II


Coyoté watched and shook his head.
"What's the problem?" he asked.
"What is it?" Owl asked.

"A painting,"
Coyoté replied, "a yellow painting."

"BUT! what! is! it!?!" Owl screeched.

"I like the color,"
Coyoté said.
"A little dark on the left though."

Owl stared at
Coyoté.
Then he stared at the print.
"I wonder what the painting looks like," he finally said.

"Probably like it was painted from this print,"
Coyoté replied. "Sure wasn't painted from something real."

Owl rolled it up carefully.
Then hit
Coyoté with it
and stormed off.

Coyoté flattened it out
and checked for damage.

There was this corner of his place
where yellow works. And it works very well there.

RD Savage
12/25/06
© 2006


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