Jenny Ward Angyal

Renascence

No cougars are supposed to roam the Appalachian mountains.  They’re supposed to be extinct here, killed off or driven out by logging half a century ago.  And yet . . . here and there a single footprint lingers in damp earth, a wisp of hair clings to rusted wire, a blurred snapshot betrays the image of a ghost-cat slipping through shadows.

And once, echoing down the mountainside where I stumbled mile after mile over rain-slicked rocks in gathering dusk—once, a long, unearthly scream to pierce the heart. 

I utter a prayer 
into the darkness
that enfolds me—
may all the vanished ones return 
when at long last we’re gone

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About the Author 

Jenny Ward Angyal’s tanka have appeared widely in journals. Her collection is moonlight on water (2016). She is tanka editor of Under the Basho.