Great Dangerous Silence

There’s a reason for it,
surely,
for
severed fox heads
nestled sleeping in
wild Alaskan grass,
For human hands and
spinal cords
tangled and morphing
in the belly of a bear,
for buzzards hovering high
above a quivering
trail of flesh
red on the riverbanks.
There’s a reason for
the abandoned campfire,
the untended shoes
stepped out of
at the edge
of the trees,
for sleek silvered trout
writhing in terror,
and eyes that
blink
in the dark.
I could fall in love
with the great
dangerous silence
of Northern night,
and the retreat of strange
footsteps
that disappear into
the woods.