The Moose and the Wolf

The Moose and the Wolf
By: Joseph Michael Webb
November 5, 2009

A meandering river cascades down a story of rocks
into a bottomless pool of turquoise waters beneath.
Snow clings to the tops of jagged rocks and trees
that line the falls and river below like a white marker.

A moose walks toward the pool of water and stands
before taking a sip from the frigid waters from sources
of ice and snow, decaying in the early spring sunlight.
She watches her calves with a careful eye of predators.

I sit amongst a pile of icy rocks that sit on the other side
of the river, down from the falls, watching the moose
and pencil in an empty sheet of paper with my charcoal.
This miraculous scene expresses the vibrancy in this life.

The mother moose stands as a wolf watches, waiting
for one of the calves to stray too far away from their mother
all for an easy meal in the rising sunlight that drenches the valley.
My coal wrestles with the sight of the wolf’s attack on the calf.

Blood splatters as the mother moose attempts to scare away
the hungry wolf that begins to devour the young one.
The other calves scatter throughout the woods beyond the river.
The mother cries in distress, an angry sound that penetrates.