The Wolves Are Howling

For Chloe Rose Violet's Writing Prompts for October:

https://vocal.media/writers/writing-prompts-for-october

***

The wolves are

howling. Gripping beasts.

Troll-winds do not even

manage to dissipate

the thickness of fog. Mist

demystifies the scratching of

paw, obscures it from

the listener. The wolves

are howling, the leaves

of the battle-tree rattle

warlike and ready, for a

moon that does not even

appear in this density of mist. Fear

in the woods. How can it be

exterminated. Poetized by predator.

In the woodwork

of twisted branches, an image

takes the shape of

wolves that are howling, wooing,

mating, combating, or else noisily

regurgitating the erubescent kill

into the yowling and gory mouths of pups.

Where are the runes

to decipher this mystery?

Foundation of depredation

under cover of fog, the omen of

the raven is not seen

nor any of the rest of the lunar poetry:

that must exist, still,

despite cover of fog

and the wolves that are howling,

growling, intoning,

mingled into the fume of troll-winds. Twisted

into the bramble of the wood

that shelters them, the once infinite meander

of gripping beasts. It is when the

wolves are no longer howling,

[world without

predators: what a dream]

that you should fear

for the wood.

***

My October Prompt: