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Monday, November 4, 2019

Wordy Monday with Wild Woman: The Wolf Mother




"The loss of the wolf is like the loss of the mother. Somewhere she roams in memory, in darkness. Our bond with her is inexplicable, before the beginning of time. She is fierce love; she is sorrow. She is a howling in the wilderness we can never see, calling us home. She is what we fear – and what we long to return to – the heat of the cave and animal closeness, before all civilization and reason.…The wolf is the dark heart of winter. She is the hot breath of life, red eyes searching for her child at twilight in the snow.”

-from The Memory Palace, by Mira Bartók

The Memory Palace  is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. It is the story of the author and her sister growing up with a paranoid schizophrenic mother, and the lives they managed to forge after, of necessity, they disappeared and changed their names as adults.

The passage above really spoke to me, needless to say. Where does it take you? To a wolf den in a Siberian winter? To wolf families vanishing across the North American landscape, falling to loss of habitat, to starvation, to the hunter's gun? Maybe it takes you to a fireside, and a mother fierce with love? Or to the mothers we have lost, whose pull is still strongly felt in our hearts.

Answer the wolf’s call with your poems about wildness and wolves, domesticity and mothers, daughters and sons, or your own fierce love for your child. Allow the passage quoted to take you where it pleases. Bring us back whatever you find.






17 comments:

  1. I love wolves and have watched several interesting programmes about them. When I was a child, during a visit to a zoo, I was standing against the wolves' enclosure fence when I felt a ticklish lick on my leg - it was a wolf!

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  2. Not quite a wolf, Sherry, but in spirit perhaps ~

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  3. Oh, I am looking forward to reading your poems! Kim, I love that a wolf kissed you. They read energy, and he knew you were safe. How awesome!

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  4. I cannot wait to read that book. It sounds incredible.

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  5. I am enjoying your poems in response to this prompt. Thank you for joining in.

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  6. Wolves have been on my life before I could remember, a picture on the wall. We have a wolf sanctuary here, north, that we have visited. I took pictures but didn't blog about our experience. This link is an old posting, a very old wolf statue in Italy that we found.
    https://jimmiehov6.blogspot.com/2006/12/siena-tuscany-italy-she-wolf.html?m=1
    ..

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  7. Wolves, to me, have always felt inherently maternal. Probably because of books like Julie of the Wolves and the Jungle book. This prompt howled at me.

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  8. I would LOVE to visit a wolf sanctuary! I do see an occasional wolf-dog around Tofino - Pup's relatives.

    The memoir is a good read - a hard life, but the author emerged strong and wonderful.

    Smiles - Lori, I LOVE that this prompt howled! Yay!

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  9. A beautiful theme, Sherry. Animals have a lot to teach us still, especially about the hardships, sacrifices and rewards of motherhood.

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  10. It is sad how hard it is for them to raise their young these days. Breaks my heart.

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  11. Good Evening, Garden Dwellers! I finally made it! Thanks, Sherry, for the compelling prompt! :)

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  12. Nice to see you, Toni and Frank. I am having computer glitches, so have been a bit preoccupied. Smiles. Your poems will be welcome relief.

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  13. I wrote for this and added a song I think you'll like.

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  14. Great prompt Sherry! I am late to the game, but my wild heart still wants to play!

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