The gray wolf [its range and habitat] historically occurred across most of Europe, Asia, and North America, except for parts of California and the Atlantic coastal plain south of Virginia. In the lower 48 states, the gray wolf was extirpated from 95 percent of its historic range. Wolves were extirpated from Maine by the 1890s. — Maine.gov
The woods are hollow. The snow
crisp but too full of sharp echo.
Whiteness cascades, the sparkle
distracts: all that suffocating
cover. But that’s insulation,
they say. That’s the shell
of protection. Subnivean.
Rest assured, warm mud lusts
beneath all frost that dazzles.
Really? What a stereotype
of winter: the pristine over
the primal. Spare me.
Layer upon layer as frosted
shield of silence when silence
is just another sign for what was
removed. White out / wipe out.
I miss the sound of wolves.
Of bobcat chortle. Of backyard
coyotes yapping over their field-
mouse find. Yipping like hurrah.
Not yelps in the clamp of trap,
of capture, of final confinement. No.
A celebration. Here I am. Here, I exist.
