There is a place for the low wolf howl,
a place for the long keening,
a place for the cry that launches itself
out of tears, after facades have fallen

It can go on as long as it has to —
no need to question the purpose
or the meaning
or if it (really now!) must be enough already

I may be howling for myself
or for the world
or for everything I put up with
but shouldn’t have,
for all the stands I didn’t take

It is a part of me I didn’t know —
Ancient, loud, flinging its sound out
Sharp enough to echo through the trees.
It frees me, at least a little,
from domestication,
from constrictions on what I’m allowed to be

It can continue as long as it needs to.
Afterwards, the horse comes out of the woods,
the bright flashing fish appear from nowhere.
I may do lucid dreaming
but this — how my creator holds me —
This is more.

©Wendy Mulhern
April 16, 2015

photo by Susanne Weiss