Sometimes you need listen very carefully. Other times it is a tumultuous uproar. Last night it was the later.

There is a certain order to it, though. It commences with the coyotes. There is no exact hour in the darkness, but it is of their choosing.

I venture to guess that I hadn’t been at slumber for terribly long before our dog, Echo, started barking at a very audible pitch. Echo was awoken by the coyotes, so she thought she’d awaken me.

So I listened for a while. Why not ? I was awake now. Guessing distance became the order of the black night. How far away were those dastardly beasts ?

Was the shrill of a fox somehow magically in the mix ? All of the sounds offered a quizzical canine mixture tonight.

I guessed that Echo’s pen is +/- a hundred feet from the bedroom. That was easy. Now, how far is Echo from the howling coyotes ?… a more difficult calculation, indeed.

That mournful cry is designed to pique the imagination. It creates an elusive puzzle in the darkness. Distance becomes part of the overall phantasm.

How distant ? Ah, the blinding vicissitudes of night, further obscured by the coyote’s howl. Who is to ever know ?

Alas, they may be closer than you think !