RUN

Wolves at Long Beach - note how skinny
Parks Canada photo

Their forest is shrinking. They emerge, tentative, ghostly, in morning mist, seeking food, seeking shelter, seeking safe places that are no more. And they are chased, by men with guns, by helicopters with whirring blades, whole families fleeing in terror, falling, one by one, to lie bleeding in the snow.

Run, brother wolf, sister wolf.
Run like the wind.

Sing your wild song,
of forest den and your young.
Sing your plea
that your cubs will live.
Sing your elegy
for all we have lost,
all we are losing.
Sing our shared heartbreak
under the midnight moon.
My heart runs with you
as you flee for your life.
Run fast.
Run far.

May you find a place
untouched by man,

to live and dream

your wolfish dreams.
May you survive,
for in this sorrowing world
I need wild wolves
alive.

for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Running. The plight of animals, both domestic and wild, in today's world, keeps on breaking my tired old wolf-woman heart. 

Here on the Coast, wildlife officers try to avoid killing wolves. No helicopter shootings here - but in other places in B.C. and Alberta, it happens. And three cougar , a mother and two yearlings, were killed last week on the Lower Mainland. Loss of habitat drives them into developed areas in search of food - pretty much a death sentence for wildlife these days.