Page 59 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue2

shelled out to prisoners, tatooed on wrists-­‐-­‐ if those are dehumanizing, what is this?) I saw the reams

of data on the internet, every detail of wolf movements, kinship, pairings, quarrels, deaths. Some

people write to complain about helicopters descending on wolves, and photos of researchers proudly

posed behind drugged-­‐ out wolves, their tongues lolling. I could see their point. I’ve seen a similar

expression before, in the old safari photos. It says: This is my story.

And why was I on the internet? I wanted something there to tell me where you were going, why you

were alone. But once inside that mess of sticky facts, I got a trapped feeling. I’d flown into a spider’s

web, and she was making her way down the silk. I turned off the computer, and walked away. For a

long time I sat thinking of dominion.

Yours is a tiny population, and one clever virus could take you out. Of course, we could be the ones to

go. But being human, I can indulge a fantasy: maybe you are making your way across a single narrow

plank into the future, an unrehearsed time without tranquilizing darts and renderings about whether

you get one last chance to stay away from sheep. In that future, your life and death will no longer be

in human hands. It will rest in the same invisible hands that once kept salmon thrashing upriver, bats

billowing into starlight, bees hauling their garlands from field to field. Life dancing long into the night,

beads of sweat flying everywhere like a thousand seeds, and awakening at dawn to the first breath of

primordial light.

Even though I didn’t see you in your prime, you sent a bolt of your power into my chest, and it’s still

there. Sometimes, before I drift into sleep, I see you loping, and that gives me a strange feeling, a

small wet hope just opening its eyes. After all that has happened, we are still connected.

I wish you well, Yellowstone wolf. I wish you well.

Yours Truly,

Joan Kresich

Joan Kresich is a poet who attempts to pare the words down to the

moment they heat up, a sort of alchemy of language. She is a long-­‐

time educator, with many years teaching in public schools. She

currently works to bring restorative practices to humans and

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