Perhaps
we should have sympathized.
The wheezing caribou,
rib cage heaving,
looked back in mid-stride.
Terror exposed
the white of her eyes.

But after all,
we're predators, too,
and are not immune
to the fever of running wolves.

Certainly
bounding over
spruce-shadowed drifts,
tracking the tense
odor of caribou,
held more appeal
than empathizing
with a hamstrung cow,
already sinking,
in shock and submission,
into the snow.

Besides,
her rapidly clouding eyes
never saw
the blood-soaked muzzles
of the wolves,
never saw
the brutal darkness
that lingered,
terribly,
on your face,
and on mine.

________________

by Roy Beckemeyer

© 1977 by L.M. Grow, PhD, et al.  

in "Gazebo: a poetry journal"