Snow
Along the high and wind-cut ridge,
the snow lay hard and white.
The wolf went in another’s tracks,
beneath the stars’ dim light.
The hare sprang out across the slope,
through heather stiff with frost.
She knew not what came close behind,
and knew not she was lost.
Above them fire crossed the sky,
and burned without a sound.
The wolf broke sudden from the dark,
and struck her to the ground.
His jaws shut hard around her throat;
the snow beneath ran red.
She lay among the winter heath,
and there the hare was dead.
He saw the ribs beneath her hide,
he licked her once, then stayed.
The warmth he followed through the dark
was fading where she lay.
He stared into the pathless deep,
and neither moved nor whined.
The wind drove snow across the blood,
and left no trace behind.
Then he went into the woods,
where all the pines stood black.
And something broke within his chest
when nothing answered back.
Still through the dark he searched again,
for one more heartbeat near.
To hold its living warmth to his,
then feel it disappear.