Canis Lupus

~ for Ana ~ I was there many times - I’d been watching him for years, (he, black as coal), almost two decades now, an extraordinary age for a wolf ... every full moon, and only then, he came to the clifftops … to howl, you ask? yes, to howl ... certainly that, for his voice was majestic, but it was far more than just a howl, it was a CRY ... a sad, mournful wail, torn from the depths of his sorrow, and cast with intense hatred at the moon … he'd lost his mate there, you see, a beautiful she-wolf - I’d not seen her equal before, I’ve not seen it since - eyes like flawless tanzanite, with a thick, shaggy, mink-like coat the color of sea foam … I had witnessed it all myself, those many years ago, under a full, dazzling, blood moon ... they had been playing in the long grass at the top of the cliffs, and a single gust of wind - unusually strong, even for that high, exposed promontory - had swept her off the edge, in an instant … and into the churning sea! I remember him running - (as I’d never seen him run before), down the long, winding, treacherous path to the water’s edge, and he stood there … for a very, very long time, sniffing the air - eyes welling, searching the water for a sign of his beloved, but neither he, nor I … ever saw her again. now, though he had slowed with age, (as had I, his faithful watcher), and though he struggled more each night to climb the long, winding path up to where he’d last danced with her, he howled - howled at the moon with all the feral strength he had left, and he would howl until his love returned from the dark, merciless depths below, or until the moon ... was no more.