Hunting Salamanders in October

I didn’t think we’d find you with the chill wind,
the overcast sky dragging shadows across the lake
making the world look more than real.

We’d walked for hours with runny noses,
our hands pulled up inside our coats,
using our sleeves as makeshift kleenex.

We jumped puddles, climbed logs, fell in puddles,
skipped stones, turned logs, lay on stone and daydreamed
and felt our ears and toes grow numb.

But then, there you were, a spindle of fire
with four legs and a tail, black spots
on a solar body, a spattered array of eclipses.

Your red body spoke of warmth and held defiance
to the shortening days as your sluggish feet and tail
moved, and were still, and then moved.

Our hands came out of our sleeves and reached
for you, and I’m sorry if we stung you with our frozen
fingers, but we were sure that somehow you had found us.

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children, fall and hunting