POEM BY LEATH TONINO

Hey skunk, morning.
You’re very tail up, nose down, eh?
That’s your way of being here,
pawing at the ground, scraping,
walking little weavy circles at dawn,
lots of stop and go.
Hear the log trucks,
the saws and skidders?
They get to it early, no time for breakfast,
those workingman men.
Cutting up where the big boar grizzly
hangs out, doing his scrape and walk,
his weavy grizzly way of being.
You probably know him, don’t you?
Bet you know just about everybody in these parts.
Whoa, did you see that?
Northern harrier so low she almost hit my head.
I try not to flinch out here, try pretty hard
to take all this straight on,
but it’s difficult.
Well, sun’s about to break those clouds
and that means I better be going,
be on my own weavy way,
get back to my own walk and scrape.
It’s my last morning here in your valley,
got some goodbyes in need of saying.
There’s this sweet little female bufflehead on the pond,
want to tell her fare thee well.
The coyotes too, of course, and the moose.
If I don’t bump into the short-eared owl,
the white-faced ibis,
or that mad crackly lovable marsh wren,
please, pass along my regards.
Tell them thanks, hang in there,
keep enjoying the air and sky,
every last blade of autumn grass.
Tell them what they don’t need to be told,
that the frost here is special,
a special thing to be cherished,
that it melts off damn fast, that the silver shine over this place
won’t last forever,
won’t ever stay longer than an hour.
Okay, I’m heading.
Have a nice one, buddy.
Scrape and circle, walk and weave.
Oh yeah, if you cross paths with that big boar,
that beast among the saws and fresh scars,
please, tell him good luck.

Leath Tonino is the author of two essay collections about the outdoors, The Animal One Thousand Miles Long and The West Will Swallow You. A freelance writer, his prose and poetry appear in The Sun, Orion, New England Review, Tricycle, Adventure Journal, Outside, and dozens of other magazines. He received the Waterston Desert Writing Prize in 2024, and a piece of his will appear in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025.

Madeline Thunder is a freelance artist, graphic designer, and part-time bike mechanic based in Bozeman, Montana. Her work is featured across the local outdoor community, with clients including Big Sky Resort, Jackson Hole Land Trust, Duckworth, and Go Fast Campers. With a deep curiosity for wild landscapes, she is especially inspired by geologic timescales, migratory birds, and summit snacks. When she is not creating, she can usually be found reading a book or playing outside.