Wolf in Winter

A Word Portrait.

Gentle supple strength, wolf’s eyes, the deceptive fragility of a willow tree. There is moonshadow at the edges of her gaze, slowly losing the pain it once had, softening from jagged sharpness to the quiet shadow silence of snow beneath the half moon.

There is much of winter within her: frost clinging to a wolf’s thick fur, snow blanketing a den full of curling body warmth, evergreen scent heavy and cold on the wind. Dark greens, amber, dappled twilight.

I have seen winter’s breath drive harder within her, blowing hail against her spirit till she winces, curls deeper in her den with its velvet darkness and its bits of jagged rock that hold their own sharp comfort. Rarely, she is bared teeth and lifting hackles, more often protective over that-which-she-claims than her own self.

Moonsilver, star-shadow, frost and fir and snow, a wolf in winter.