The Moon Gives Answer
By John Herlihy

The scene wild, cruel, and unrelenting,
Death lies quietly in wait, fermenting.
Under a blanket of cloudy, light skies,
The whiteness stings, blinds the eyes.
The ears tingle, then they ring hollow,
The sturdy winds thru tree limbs blow.
This is harsh land of an eternal winter,
Pure landscape of a thousand snows.
Enriched beyond calculating measure,
With an enduring peace no one knows.
The night assumes a presence magical,
Wind awakens silence with its madrigal
Snowflakes blown in torrential streams,
Winter harshness a stern face it seems.

Suddenly, they saw an unfamiliar sight,
Enough to give pause, unwanted fright.
A body lay in shadow like rumpled cloth,
The attitude is rigid, the fur blowing soft.
A comrade has fallen, now frozen stone,
Never has anything been so much alone.
The eyes still open, the light of sight gone,
Ways of the living ended, a curtain drawn.
Mock sleep the wolf’s posture of repose,
Wrapped now in a cloak of eternal doze.
The comrades at arms approach cautious,
Their stomachs empty, feeling nauseous.
They tread slowly, lightly on rough paws,
They smell the air, recalling nature’s laws.

The light of the moon serves as witness,
Borrowed from the midnight sun’s glow.
The night’s darkness knows only stillness,
As light illuminates the scene here below.
The wolf pack looks about them questioning,
They raise their eyes to an indifferent moon.
Falling shards of light as fingers beckoning,
To draw them away from the ominous gloom.
Night sounds of winter crackling, sparkling,
This fearsome night is awesome, terrorizing.
They raise heads and utter a fearsome howl,
While there lying silent in roughage of snow,
Lay the dead still image of their shadow self.
The pale moon whispers its answer in stealth.