The Wolf Poem by Sara Dickson

The wolf, the twisted, wretched creature of shadows,
Sat in the center of the underworld,
Waiting for the next dying soul to come within his reach,
Controls the balance of life and death so cruel,
Biting the frayed string as one life hangs by a simple thread,
His heart as blackened and shriveled as a prune decaying,
The pale gray trees around him are still,
Gnarled sorry things but,
They are like the skeletons of the lost,
Their pointed branches reach out to him,
Begging to see the forgiving light of day again,
Yearning for a sign of happiness,
Even if only in the form of a single shard of light,
But the wolf's blank eyes look away in disgust,
For he knows that they can no longer grasp life,
While their blood still flowed they were blind,
Did not see how wrong they were in their ways,
And though now they have open eyes, it is already too late,
Their reward is worse than death itself,
For each night as the moon shines upon the trees dead,
Stained souls, blackened souls, are released from their spindly prisons,
As they are freed, tortured screams and sobs echo through the night,
Trapped in their worst nightmares and memories,
Dying repeatedly their terrible deaths,
Yet all this time the wolf has watched them suffer as he suffered himself,
But now the price, the time he owed as a guardian has been paid,
So he slinks silently away in the dark.