Wolf

The salt-worn trees
and their terraced arms
white as bone, as cartilage,
twined into rope and
laced like string between
cloud and earth.
Wind blows through,
caught in the late-light shadows,
the teeth of baleen whales,
gusts of seawater and krill,
sea-wind and spring mosquitos,
the ocean giving each footstep
to the ferns,
a slipped, soft whisper,
a creek bubbling over stone.
Down the path,
yellow eyes
from the black shadow,
the ancient thump
of distant waves;
droplets falling like snow on fur,
and you find you are still tied to the smell of smoke,
the same old fire,
still burning yellow in the dark.