Shaman who is keeping the flame.
Dancing like it's his last day.
Holding many secrets, knowing many fates.
Brown stubby knotted fingers do the pointing.
The young brown pups do the fetching.
Guiding the meek, chanting history.

He taught my family how to preserve mother.
Sometimes for sport, sometimes for balance.
Insisted we did this favour; not as ritual, but as rite.
We wait until the moon is filled of Mars.
We sing our people's song.
Sometimes a harmony, sometimes a challenge.

To do the shamans work; maybe *****.
We roam in threes, sometimes fours.
Our sanctified goal to slay mother's cousin.
Tall ones, brown like us, bones gnarly from skull.

We huff, and puff; the winter cold.
Lungs tired after kissing the chilly breeze.
The tundra lit up with a crimson sheen.
Fatiguing the march, yet we fly.

Hunters we hunt, fast with four legs.
We single a herd, resting their heads.
We focus the small ones, biting and gashing.
They fell like birch trees, painting the powder.
Outnumbering us, sport turns to anxiety.

We bite, gnaw, ****, and claw.
They fall hard to the Earth.
We don't feast, we have a mission.
Looting the bones, we keep them in submission.
Thinning them out; is our fed intuition.
Brothers grow tired, the prey devastated.
Mars reflects to us, as if saying mother is pleased.
The young brown pups do the fetching.