The Dream of the Gray Wolf
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Outside listening to the merry mystic music swaying in the wind before the storm. Rain smells heavy in the air, noisy with the breath of life. Everything’s stirring in this spring pool— someone’s slamming shutters, dust dances on the roof, the engines’ cool soft hum on the street below. I vanish into my surroundings, fall soundlessly through sheets of memories billowed like sails, waiting only to rise— Again the cries of forward motion perpetual motion will rise. Can I follow the course of this river all the way to New Orleans? Hocking Ohio Mississippi The Delta River queen and voodoo mamma are you all that you seem? May I trouble you for a while— I’m searching for a book. A life. But here and now the gentle patter of the rain— cleansing power or rebirth. I dreamed I saw a gray wolf dying, shrunken eyes and ribs, caved-in belly I looked in its plaintive eyes unsettled— perhaps I had been expected. "I’m sorry!" I cried, "What else could I do?" The wolf lay down its head saying nothing at all.
This poem was originally published in a slightly different form as Jack Beltane and appeared in the book Nightshade & Daylight, which is available for $6 ($2 Kindle).