Today’s spotlight is a poignant imagery and poetry mix by writer and ethical photographer Mark Lukas. His passage captures both the beauty and the struggle of a coyote’s life in a ever-changing environment. It invites us to reflect on how our expanding landscapes affect the wild beings who continue to live among us and our connection with nature in a more-than-human world.
My name is Coyote.
Long before glass and steel caught the sun,
before roads stitched prairie into grids,
my voice rose with dusk
and settled in frost.
Across this continent,
people knew me.
Ma’ii — the enduring one.
Isapa — watcher of open places.
Trickster to some.
Teacher to others.
Relative to those who understood
every life moves within another.
I have worn many names
and outlived most.
I am family-bound—
mate beside mate,
pups guarded,
lessons passed in quiet gestures
of patience and play.
You see me and think wild,
as if wild means distant.
I have always lived
at the edge of your noticing—
between headstones and high-rises,
along fence lines and frozen paths,
in the blue hush before your day begins.
I take only what I need.
I do not seek your fear.
I ask for space to exist.
Time reshaped the land.
You built upward.
I learned the spaces between.
Not defiance.
Adaptation.
Resilience written softly into each step.
Look into my eyes and remember:
Wildness was never the opposite of you,
only a different way of belonging.
Walk gently.
We are neighbors.
We always were.
~ Mark lukas
This tribute is part of our ongoing commitment to nature literacy — learning how wildlife lives, how our actions affect them, and how coexistence grows from knowledge, respect, and responsibility. ~ Coyote Watch Canada
