Tundra, After Midnight

TUNDRA, AFTER MIDNIGHT

Alaska, zero moon. The tundra holds its breath.

Snow drift, sifted static over parallel plains.

Wind says nothing, then something, then nothing again.

Coldness, darkness, winter night, the wind’s zen.

Five wolves. Or four. Or seven. Numbers blend in.

Muzzles steam—white script on black paper—unread, unread.

They stand, then lean, then lift their faces, look back.

Silence counts them once, then twice, then loses track.

Step. Stop. A far tin click of ice.

A long vowel opens in the dark and there it stays to the end.

Odd hours favor odd prayers; the pack white-on-white stay low:

two beats, one beat, a held breath, a break in the snow.

No star, no compass, only the low grammar of weather.

The world reduces: pulse, frost, a thin blue vein of wind.

Somewhere a camp; somewhere a road; but they’re only in a dream

Here, only breath and the blank that answers puffs of rising steam.

They answer it anyway, each throat a silver hinge—

open, hinge, open—shadow-bell, iron-bone bell—

until the night itself leans in to listen and hear a low register growl,

and on and on this dark winter night - the wolves did howl.