Winter Hunting

Wolves are tracking in the snow,
Hunting in a throng.
They are hungry, starving in the cold;
Winter has been long.
Some trails are hidden by the wind's blow,
But this trail can't be wrong
That one wolf sniffs; it's not hours old.
She lifts her head in a howled song.

Other wolves nearby are searching too,
And they all turn to hear.
Then they quickly run to her
And stop when they are near.
She shows them all the trail so new,
And together they all peer
At the white ground covered all over
By the tracks of a bounding deer.

They run off following in a hurry;
They do not hesitate.
The snow has begun to fall again,
And soon it may be too late.
So along the trail the great wolves scurry
As it courses as straight
As the hot blood in the wolves' dark veins.
Wolf hunger cannot wait.

The tracks lead down a snowy hill
To where begin the trees.
The wolves run quickly with ice beneath;
Noiselessly they pad with ease.
Their minds are set on the impending kill,
Which will their stomachs please.
They growl with impatience and gnash their teeth
As their hungers rise, increase.

Amidst the trees, less new snow falls,
For the branches keep the most.
And so the tracks remain plain and bare,
The hoofprints scattered close.
Through the forest come the calls
Of creatures, sounding like ghosts.
But the wolves, they seem hardly aware,
In hunting so engrossed.

Suddenly the leader halts,
Standing still in snow.
Every wolf comes near and stops;
All of their minds know
That now there can be no faults.
Then they continue, slow,
Until the reach a peaceful copse;
And there, a lovely doe.

They lunge! Gray bodies in the air!
Their fangs! they pierce the day!
And the fleshy brown legs of the deer,
As she struggles to get away.
She kicks and bleats and her nostrils flare
As her flesh the great wolves flay.
From her wide, brown eye drops a single tear,
And then, dead falls the prey.

The blood turns the white snow to red
And masks wolf jaws in smears.
They gnaw at the corpse with fangs of pearl
And all at each other leer.
But the leader hears someone's tread,
And turns to what catches her ear.
A black wolf? No, a short, dark haired girl,
Her brown eyes filled with fear.

Every wolf turns to the human female
Crouching low beneath a pine.
She's watching; they watch back and find
No sign of her being malign.
When she runs off, they do not assail,
But return to their meal to dine.
Soon their hunger is out of mind,
And they depart without one whine.

And the young girl lives to tell a tale
Much similar to mine.


-- Copyright J. S. Ferrell, April 25, 2005