Ode to the Wolf

Ode to the Wolf

Wolf killers and torturers
Oh to be manly
Brash loud proud
Ignorant of their vacuity and shallow depths

Terrify Inflict pain on Annihilate
Those who are better than they
Put their fear into the noble and majestic
Never knowing their own cowardice, their pretending to be men
Never knowing how pitiable they are

They render the world as homogenous and banal as they are
Puffing their chests to
Run away from respect and honor and the pain of being human

All while the beautiful and generative go out of the Earth
Leaving their ghosts as infinite splendor
That will outlive us all

Joseph Scalia III, Psya.D. is a psychoanalyst, environmental and social critic, living in the northern reaches of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. His environmental writings and interviews have appeared in numerous journals and podcasts in recent years. He is the author of Intimate Violence: Attacks Upon Psychic Interiority and numerous psychoanalytic journal articles. Scalia is in private practice in Livingston, Montana, and is President of Gallatin Yellowstone Wilderness Alliance, as well as a past President and current critic of Wild Montana (né Montana Wilderness Association).