is he gonna stay on the path?
i don't know, i don't even know if i will, i do know the coyote will not,
but it's ok, we're not predators though we like to consider ourselves part of nature,
such as it is. provisional. still, animal.
this is not verbatim. i actually used the term moron. you can't talk to self-righteous morons.
who don't know what they don't know and don't want to know and want control of what is lost.

ok perhaps i chose wrong in going to the island, for the birders were not in sight, and the nature police were blocking the path through our bobolinkless meadow.
i groaned. i wished we were with our birders. where oh where is our flock? 
does nature stay on the path? nature is off the path. how close are we allowed to get to nature being human and of a distinctly unnatural taint, a tier above dogs. 
do coyotes stay on the path. the coyotes are laughing at the nature police, alternating with tears. i go off the path to pee and decompress from the righteous throng of the nature police.
we are separate from nature. we don't have nature, and the nature police are here to maintain that. we have a nature museum. we have museum guards, angry at the death of nature, preserving the display, like a diorama they create.

i'm writing fast, trying to exhale the acrid air of the nature police an hour plus later.
i said this is copper and i am doug and we have been coming here for years, on and off the path, and nature has absorbed our footprints. we have been with the birders, and we come to enjoy, not to disturb, and we are disturbed now, by you, you sanctimonious nature police.
he said why not come and help us. i say i pick up garbage all the time. he says oh, well there's not much of that here. they come to eliminate the invasive species, eliminating the habitat where the insects birds mammals would hide. the fauna has no flora in which to hide. this is the war on invasive species. this is the war on us. i feel shame, i feel sorrow, i feel like i must fight, not to invade the museum, but to be as i am, in the sanctuary of what remains of nature, as we all would be, given a chance, if nature were not a museum, if nature were free. 
in the nature museum, note, there are many non-native species, and many natives are dead.

the funniest thing is i said we are part of nature and he said so are the capitalist predators raping the land. i said you are equating this golden retriever with the capitalist predators? you sir, are a moron, kindly mind your non-native species and leave us the fuck alone. this is not a museum nor is it yours and you are not the warden of the surviving species.

so the next walk we go to the big water, and release.