Before Speech

Audio:

Before Speech


was the wolf pack, the moon’s children,
her insignia borne in the whites of their faces.

There was high ground at the heart of their forest
sacred for long sight, steeped in their smells.

There was bow and gesture, a sniff of the ear
that meant home, that meant heart,
that meant abiding mother with her belly in the dirt.

There was signal flashed across space.
There was the will to sing.
Anyone could start.