Empathy with Wolves

Everything is dark except me, and the wolf

whose darkness is hidden beneath thick, grey, fur.

Hide covered overcoats artfully engulf

tall frames, with pelt hats, screaming ‘meat is murder’.

I have an empathy with wolves, their lonely vigil

resurrects in me a primeval loss.

Concealed by my birth, it anticipates evil

by shaping my life, and providing pathos.

A catastrophe of light, wrestling with shadows,

They demonise that which they cannot restrain.

I’m secured by stone walls, steeply cliff-like and sallow,

As wild women dance in the driving rain.

I have an empathy with wolves, that gut deep courage,

A grief borne howl wrenched out from my soul

which scarcely obscures my cacophonous outrage,

At man’s inability to console –

a wolf woman, weeping for the loss of her offspring,

A wild woman, mourning the loss of her dreams.

Compassion fuelled rage, concealing her aching

compliance to man who is not what he seems.

I have an empathy with wolves, a proud archetypal

who stays with her mate, yet yearns for her kind.

But I can’t rely on my mate for survival,

To extinguish my fear and interpret my mind.

An intuitive hunter, her lands are invaded,

Silently seduced by their shape shifter charm.

They forget how she guarded the scull of St Edmond¹

from the men who stood silent, but intended him harm.

I have an empathy with wolves, whose ultimate freedom

lies with the pack, not with human caprice.

The wolf woman’s deep and intuitive wisdom,

Somehow engenders within me some peace.

She is caged in vain hope that by keeping her captive,

A brutal entrapment with unbreakable chord,

I will, by my suicide, meet their objective,

To mask the betrayal of one I adored.

I have an empathy with wolves, who fiercely prideful,

Are faithfully loving by any degree,

It is human marauders who are singularly able

to first break your heart and then set you free.

¹ St Edmond was a martyr. God sent a wolf to stand guard over his decapitated head until his followers could find it.