Little Animals

Our voices lost between the night sounds,
We were shapeless then.
The no trespassing sign
Was emboldened by the moonlight.
We raced past it, over the wooden fence,
Howling like wild dogs, like young beasts:
We were something more than human,
Something easier.

From where did we find this courage,
This force that drove us on and on?
It filled us up, stretched its warmth all through us,
It made us pioneers. Something more than human.

We were drunk on time, on our age.
We had yet to experience the despair
That wisdom offers. We were free of
The obsessive need to be responsible,
Yet to develop the endless list
Of ready made answers, for all the
Unimportant questions facing the
Modern Adult. We were, for a moment, free.

The old man cut his way through the forest toward us,
A shot gun slung over his shoulder like a dead animal.
It was loaded. The Human Element.
Upon his warning shot we scattered
Like fearful birds into thick darkness, our territory.