the alpha wolf

The alpha wolf is out;
with jaws, and throat, and tooth of grout.
He burns a slender track upon the heath
and catches up the foundlings in his teeth.
He passes in a hungry blur
the horse’s hoof, the cowboy’s boot and spur.
His knotted belly is all hair and reproduction;
a wary glance and growl is his seduction.
His fate is in his glands;
his chartered firth leads forth to barren lands.

He pauses at the ridge’s peak
to scent the frigid darkness and to speak.
The elk, the moose, the mountain cat,
startled in their distant habitat,
knuckle to their knees,
moan and gaze white-eyed at the husky trunks of trees.
He haunts the creekbed plans
and harries grizzled claimers at their pans.
They hush their conversation out,
ease to the saddles, seize a bolt of thunder and turn about.

© Joel Helbling, 03/2005 (all rights reserved)