The Last Wolf

The Last Wolf- Poem 167
Mary Tallmountain

The last wolf hurried toward me

throught the ruined city

and I heard his baying echoes

down the steep smashed warrens

of Montgomery Street and past

the ruby-crowed high rises

left standing
their lighted elevators useless

Passing the flicking red and green

of traffic signals

baying his way eastward

in the mystery of his wild loping

gait

closer the sounds in the deadly

night

through clutter and rubble of quiet

blocks

I hear his voice ascending the

hill

and at last his low whine as he

came

floor by empty floor to the room
where I sat

in my narrow bed looking west,

waiting

I heard him snuffle at the door and

I watched

He trotted across the floor

he laid his long gray muzzle

on the spare white spread

and his eyes burned yellow

his small dotted eyebrows quivered
Yes, I said.

I know what they have done.

This poem is called, “The Last Wolf.” It is by Mary Tallmountain. I choose this poem because I am always interested when someone writes about nature and the animals that must live inside it. This poem was very unique because it combines nature and the grime of the city. It describes a woman who knows this wolf and can understand him. The wolf is the last left of his kind and when the wolf walks into the room where the woman is waiting; she says, “Yes, I know what they have done.” This implies that someone or something has killed the other wolves. The wolf feels incredibly alone and howls out while he is running through the city toward the woman. This woman is the only thing that the wolf has left and he feels compelled to come back to her and express his grief. This poem could be about the destruction of the world and its creatures. It could be a premonition of a time when the cities of the world are overrun by wild life and people no longer appreciate the worlds beauty and kill off all of the wolves in their fight for survival in this new doomed world. This poet uses amazing imagery in describing the crumbling city and the emotion on the wolf’s face. She breaks her poem apart line by line in order to create a more dramatic affect. One word may go on a line. This emphasizes the lines in certain stanzas and creates a ‘body’ to her poem. There is a distinct introduction, of herself and of the wolf, then the body, then the conclusion where she understands the wolfs suffering.