Writing the wolf

I’m writing again.

I’m writing a wolf.
I write that his coat gleams like ice,
that his eyes shine like sunlight on snow.

The wolf says “no”.

I write his hunger. I write his belly
clenching against his spine,
his teeth biting down on air.

No.

I write the scent of life
clinging to leaf and twig,
a red thread running
through a labyrinth.

No.

I write the paw prints
ink on paper
the trail cutting away
to the horizon

I am drawn to writing about wolves at the moment. I don’t know why. I’m just writing it out of my system. This is for the dVerse Meet the Bar night.

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Boundary – I

The boundaries are quite obvious here,

this land of deep lanes, high hedges,

odd shaped fields, that must have some story

to explain their angles.

The stream is another boundary,

between this parish and the next,

though my neighbour,

bringing up her daughters,

crossed the stream for school and chapel.

The hedges by the road

are well clipped now, holding back fields,

where there was scrubby growth,

so that I seldom see a deer these days.

The rooks know no boundaries.

Their world spreads out below them,

open wide, but then again,

I see their sentinels, on branches

or on wires, and wonder how

they mark their boundaries in the air.

So, I’ve been thinking about editing and redrafting. I mostly write to prompts, and generally post quite quickly – which is great! – lots of instant feedback, not too much to ponder over. However, I tell myself that I can go back and re-draft and edit, and I never do. I’ve decided to make that explicit. This was written for Sammi’s prompt – Boundary – and it’s a very rough splurge of words. I’m going to give it a month, have another look, and put up the next draft. Let’s see how far we can go. If anyone’s interested on linking up on this, let me know, and we can think about how we do it.