The Urban Wilderness

It was a natural wilderness seldom
penetrated, a large, extended gash in
the earth, a thickly forested landscape
surrounded by farms on land long
settled and arable aside from the 
resistant geology of the ravine. Urban
sprawl displaced the farms but nothing
could displace the ravine and the forest
and the water coursing through the ravine
floor. In that forest groundbirds flourished
alongside a panoply of small furry
creatures and predators both winged
and furred. As houses were built on the
ravine's perimeter migratory corridors
closed and deer became scarce though
more adaptable creatures remained
cherishing an extended food source
cadged from human waste. Residents of
nearby neighbourhoods valued the forest
a recreational haven where dogs could be
free to spurt into the forest interior and
emerge exercised and happy. Foxes and
raccoons abounded alongside smaller fry
until the abundance of wildlife contracted
when coyotes adopted the habitat treasured
by all. Now, companion dogs' exquisitely
sensitive detection senses are on alert
quietly detecting the presence of alpha
predators bold enough to confront both
dogs and their walkers confident in their
natural rights in this still-wild haven.