time for something poetic

Not really enamored with this poem--but the final lines grabbed my attention.  Happy Friday! 

 Out of the bunch grass
              out of the cheat grass
              a bunch of grass waddles
                    my way.

Quill-tips bleached by winter four
              inches down: crown of glory dark
              at the roots: a halo
                           
catching the sun's
                            final song:

No way could such steady
              oblivion possibly live
              up to legend, whatever
                            fear I might have had
                            is gone, but still I stop

Short on my after-dinner walk, no
              collision course if I
              can help it, thinking
                            at first it's the wind,
                            nudging a path out of the field

Or one of a covey of tumbleweed
              lost like those today on the freeway,
              racing ahead of my car that whole long drive
              here to the banks of the Snake, to friends
                            so close they know
                            when to leave me alone.

As though I were nowhere around, the porcupine
              shuffles the edge of the road,
              in five minutes crosses
                            a distance I could have covered
                            in less than one

And disappears at last into cattails
              and rushes, sunset, a vespers
              of waterbirds, leaving me
                            still unwilling to move.

I am a sucker for scenes like this.
              The slowest beauty can rush me.
              And here I am,
                            all of my defenses down.

"Porcupine at Dusk" by Ingrid Wendt, from Surgeon Fish. © WordTech Editions, 2005.