I live with a wolf named Kane

Well that wolf is howling and barking again! His name is Kane and he lives in my house here in Missoula. Maybe I'll go see what he's up to. ..
I'm back! He just wanted to be let in I guess. I feel bad about that, leaving him outside all the time. Well I guess if he was in the wild there wouldn't be any barking he could do to be let into some place.

I bet Kane was cold out there, at least his thick fur felt cold when I let him in. Though according to Barry Lopez's Of Wolves and Men a wolf can sleep with its back to the wind in forty degrees below zero. It sure isn't that cold these days in Missoula and it sure won't be. Not with the way the buttercups have been creeping up the mountainsides over the years due to global warming.

I don't know where Kane came from originally. He's not all wolf, three quarters his owner says. The last quarter is malamute, which are supposedly part wolf anyway. He's a large animal and it took some getting used to, sharing a house with him, but now we get along and I don't think he plans on biting my face off even though he easily could.

Wolves don't wag their tales that much at least Kane doesn't. He is old though. He's seen a lot of things. As I understand it, He spent a lot of his days up in Kalispell Montana just sitting on the porch of a house. I wonder what the neighbors thought! I wonder what Kane thought...

I'll sit here, I'll do
I'll wait and sniff
and you'll follow my
windborn hairs
like a trail of my urine,
But I have no
territory not I.

I'll sit here, I'll wait.
I'll look into
human eyes
and they
will look into mine
both of us wondering
why we are
together.

I'll sit here, on the porch
with a good breeze
to carry my
parents breath to me
to carry my
howls like postcards
back in time
and deep through dreams.

I'll sit her, but I
will not miss the
blood and trouble
each moment lived
on moss or snow
too wet for my
carpet polished paws
that no longer feel
the ridges of the tracks of prey
nor dig for mice,
and though I wait and sit
I send my thoughts back
while my body stays.