Wolves in the Snow
the wolves call:
a month from now
we plan to answer that call,
to wend our way to Montana,
and then into Wyoming,
with lupophile guides who know and love
the wildness and the camaraderie of these cousins of ours,
we have sought them in the summer
and found brief intersections of our lives and theirs,
once watching alpha female 42F
work to entice the pups across Soda Butte Creek,
a stick in her jaw: to play? to entice?
the alpha male at the same time
ready to hunt, and the older pups,
not fully with him,
but, like a preschool teacher, he adjusted
and found the way to lead them on,
with the waning of winter,
and the assertion of snow,
we hope to see the wolves hunt, and succeed,
we have never seen Yellowstone, and the Lamar Valley,
when snow is everywhere, and the lush grass is hidden,
we hope to be able to luxuriate in the glory late winter reveals,
and to stay warm enough, functional enough,
to see, to appreciate, to photograph
the wolves when they can dominate,
there is a stasis with ice and snow, a simplifying,
what we hope for, though, is a quickening,
as the wolves express who they are
as dominant predator in this park
we have loved for years,
even before the wolves returned.
by Henry H. Walker
January 20, ‘23
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