Re-wilding Rose Malone

Re-wilding

Grey footfall is tentative: eyes huge in unfamiliar dusk. One nervous paw touches hard ground, experimentally. Withdraws. The memory of wildness sleeps in the pelt, constrained by phantom bars. Survival skills unlearnt, the body like a harp whose strings are cut. No appetite for bloodshed when such easy pickings come. Turned lone without the pack, confusion grows. The muzzled voice is clogged from lack of use: a mountain stream dammed in the headwaters. Freedom will release the ancient dreams, the tuning of the forest orchestra. Trees will vibrate to a full-throated howl.

Rose Malone

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