News on the Mountain


We have wolves!
Pete talked about
seeing one, tawny,
yellow eyes, instead
of a brindle back,
tan, beautiful.
He saw him standing
on a ridge.

We have wolves!
According to Dee
who works in wildlife
they have come down
from Yellowstone.
There is a path
through public lands
straight from there
to here.

We have wolves!
Now in this mountain
community where
mining, logging,
even bison roamed,
though that didn't
work out too well.
Thunder spooked
the herd who ran
pell-mell down the mountain
all the way to Johnstown
tearing up fences
from here to there.

Old Hyatt the rancher
had to pay
for their repair, and
he subsequently decided
maybe bison weren't
the way to get rich.

We have Wolves!
We sit at the dinner table
grinning,
all of us, as if
to say, something
has been put right,
brought back where
it belonged, and
we had shared in the guilt
for its being gone.

Not that we would
mingle or feel
altogether amicable
with wolves
for they are predators
(like us)
but knowing they
are here is comforting
is right and just.

We so seek
to make the world
in the image we imagine
of ourselves
of brightness
and niceness
tamed and controlled.

While the world
is better with
a wholeness
with the beauty
and fierceness
and brilliance
of wolves.

And we howl inside ourselves
grateful, awed
with the knowledge
there is a beautiful wolf
(Pete said he'd go out
to see it in his underwear)
somewhere here
on Storm Mountain.



~~ Pat Maslowski