It's Still Life

A Walk With Wolves

Yesterday was a walk with my father’s memory. His wisdom still resonates in my bones. As always he keeps to my left side, to speak to my heart, he says. We walk with two wolves, a White and a Grey who step from the depths of salt marsh reeds – they shake off heavy hoar frost clinging to their fur. Stand together, shoulder to shoulder, the Grey is broader and slightly taller; the White wolf is distracted by everything that moves. Grey wolf’s age is in its calm, a not-bothered by anything demeanour. He is muscular, still as air, eyes deep as lakes, and he stares at crows picking at an overflowing garbage bin. White wolf wants to push the bin over to see if crows can really fly.

White wolf is warm, gentle with me and some others, her heavy head often settles on my lap, her eyes taking in my mood which she melts like ice. My White can be a horror if angry. Your worst friend. She is wild, and her wildness is precious to me. One eye is slowly losing sight. She is familiar. Wind. Speed. Humour. Love. She understand limits. Understands my flaws, and loves me for them. The Grey and White are as real to me as the cosmos that created them.

“Come!” I say, and head for the footbridge over the Cuckmere River. It’s shallow and winding, tidal at this point – it’s low tide so the river is a muddy broad ditch right now. White wolf runs past me, and jumps into the river. Running, splashing, tail counterbalancing. She looks toward me. I laugh, and now she’s chasing water. Grey wolf, runs and leaps the entire width of the ditch without touching the water. He waits on the other side for me, and for White wolf who’s decided chasing water is useless; there’s too much of it . They are shoulder to shoulder again, running as fast as they can, breath in clouds around them, White wolf gaining slightly ahead … and Grey wolf nips at her rump to remind her that he was first. Always first. Always will be.

She shifts left, and chases up a steep hill that’s spotted with sheep.

I pronounce in a low sharp voice “Stop!” … and she does, turning her head toward me. Grey wolf’s standing next to my father’s memory. The two of them are content in each other’s company. White wolf runs down the hill, leaving the sheep scattered and unsettled. Her tail is gyrating balance, a spiral, an arabesque. And she barks with joy.

And when White wolf joins us, I point to the distance and say, “Ahead.” They chase through bracken that’s the shade of deep winter, and then disappear within the refraction of similar colours. But still, I can hear them against the earth, their weight pounding into the thawing soil, their lungs breathing in December frost, and the constant chatter between them.

In a few hours, my father’s memory will return from where it came, Grey wolf will return to his home, and White wolf and I will settle into a quiet, early night … but for a few hours, none of us were lone wolves.

---

560 words: 3 minutes reading time. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2023.