Happy am I
called Grebe Lake
reflecting passing clouds
and the hills that surround me
home to many creatures
happy am I
Happy am I
the black wolf with the blue face
rests beside me
breathing deeply of my cool stillness
I will be calm and quiet
and show him my best welcome
Happy am I
When this beauty first appeared, he rested in the shade of the tree for quite a while. Then he left and returned about an hour later, heading to his kill.
Americans, including me, think of themselves as decent people. Certainly we have made mistakes as a nation – big mistakes. But we learn from them, grow, and improve. Our social structure encourages this.
But now I wonder.
Are we the people who fought a bloody civil war to keep human beings from being treated as property, overturning a practice engaged in and accepted as normal since the beginning of human time?
Or are we a people who use and abuse animals, domestic and wild, treating them as personal property, hunting them for pleasure, torturing them as part of the hunt?
Do we accept wholesale slaughter in the name of management?
Do we act based on fear and myth, or do we insist that facts guide our behavior?
Who are we?
Do we talk to each other to solve our problems – or do we talk only to those who already agree with us?
Are we a people whose legal system prohibits behavior which shocks the conscience?
Some day, and let it be soon, the treatment of wolves we see in Alaska, Idaho, and Montana will be considered as unacceptable, legally and morally, as the degradation and enslavement of humans.
Here is a letter e-mailed to Dan Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Mr. Ashe is considering plans to permit wolf hunting in Wyoming. I post this letter in the continuing hope that words have meaning and effect. The letter includes my poem “Weapons of War” and asks some questions I would love to have answered. If it encourages anyone to become more involved, that would be wonderful. A list of those who received the e-mail, in modified form as appropriate, follows. If there is someone else to add to the conversation, please let me know.
Dear Director Ashe:
Here is a poem on a much-discussed subject. Sometimes I find that, when prose fails, poetry can bridge the gap.
Weapons of War
The mighty rage
ready their weapons
steel their hearts
polish their hate
Their adversaries,
having nothing to polish,
avoid the fray
armed only with craft, skill
and a survivor’s will
I also have some questions about wolf de-listing and the authorization to hunt in Montana, Idaho, and possibly now Wyoming.
1. What has been the problem/inadequacy with the federal compensation program when wolves attack livestock?
2. Can any inadequacies be fixed?
3. Can a hunting program be fashioned which is designed specifically to limit livestock losses? That is, can wolf hunting be permitted solely on an as-needed basis, rather than for sport?
4. What other means exist, besides hunting, to protect livestock? How can these means be promoted?
5. What can be done to encourage and support those ranchers who do use means other than hunting to protect their livestock – i.e. dogs, electrified fences, etc.
6. If hunting must be for sport, then let it be sport – i.e. no trapping, no air searches, no calling or baiting. Idaho permits trapping with a 72-hour trap check. 72 hours! That’s torture before death.
7. How can we justify a full-scale hunt when we collar wolves, encourage them to approach and be observed? In my experience, wolves who permit themselves to be viewed up close have all been collared. Instead of increasing their fear of humans, this seems to acclimate them to a human presence. Are we now to shoot them?
8. How can a “plan”, such as Idaho’s, which envisions the killing of 850 out of ˜1,000 wolves be called management?
Above all, hunting and management decisions must be based on facts, not fear, and science rather than myth. In sum, before permitting hunting in Wyoming or continuing approvals for hunting elsewhere, can you help to fashion a limited, controlled, factually-based management program which meets legitimate needs? Until this can happen, wolf hunting can wait.
Black shadow at the forest edge
grows and deepens
darkens to a thicker ink
begins to quiver
moving now into the meadow
a black wolf emerges
from my imagination
The Going
Rested, satisfied returning to the shadows satiating dreams
This is probably the last wolf video for a while – but not the last wolf poem. Wolves are on the brain now, with hunting in Montana and Idaho. Hope you don’t mind.
The “coming” in this poem is not on video. I saw it, though, and it was just as I have always imagined (a wolf behind every shadow). The “going” is on the video.
Guests for the evening
arrive unannounced
perch quietly outside the window
under the eaves
gone by daybreak –
no laundry to wash
or meals to make –
• • • •
a raven feather waves
a good-bye greeting
from Greek columns
Close the curtains, and don’t ruffle the guests’ feathers.
Sorry about the poor picture, but I wanted you to see the pair. They came every night at dusk and left at dawn. Lake Hotel is closed for the season, but I suspect they are still roosting there.
The black wolf with the blue face
dines with reserve
wiping his mouth carefully
with his tongue
taking time to savor the flavor
nervously watching
for unwelcome company
but retiring graciously
at frequent intervals
so the humans,
should they desire,
can share his splendid feast
Sorry about the beautifully-focused yarrow in the foreground and the sometimes-fuzzy wolf. I left some of these scenes in, because it’s not every day you see a wolf eating his kill.
It wasn’t just by accident that we happened upon this wolf. The previous day we had met two backpackers on the trail who described their experience at Grebe Lake. Wolves had killed an elk a few feet from their tent, and they had to listen to the kill for most of the night. The next morning they saw the black wolf, who walked right by the tent. (They think he took their tent cover.) They made a beeline out – in the opposite direction from their car – and said they were very glad to see humans.
The next day there was only one answer to the question of where to hike – to Grebe Lake! Fully expecting the trail to be closed (it wasn’t), we took it, looking around nervously for grizzlies who might be hurrying along in that direction.
When we got to the lake, the ravens started screaming and calling and carried on for over an hour. When the wolf came out, they quieted down. I think they were warning him about us. Go ravens! You can hear them calling on the tape and see one in the grass waiting his turn. You can’t really see the wolf wiping his mouth, which he did frequently. But aside from wrestling with the carcass, which you wouldn’t expect to see at the dinner table, the wolf was quite mannerly.
Kill for pleasure
kill for hate
kill to merely eradicate
It’s been done before
and will happen again
the sword proves mightier
than the pen
Powered by myth
fueled by fear
reason alone will not prevail here
No safety it seems
for those who bear
the ancient burden of slanderous fare
Fairy stories the old wives tell
drive regulation
in Western hell
What a red tongue you have, Grandma!
This wolf and his white mate were a few feet away when we first saw them. They could have ripped us limb from limb had they wanted to. But they demonstrated only curiosity and some concern – we were two of the first humans to intrude on their territory – probably close to a den – after a long winter.
This was not taken with a telephoto lense. This fellow was on his way to a dead elk and stopped to take a look. There was no threat in his eyes – simply curiosity.
Wolf hunters are the only hunters who hate what they kill. Can this be permitted?
Do our survival instincts require us to find an enemy?
Sweet Planet Poems 