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| In the third week of January a hunter in the Boise National Forest (Idaho) shot Oregon 16, a collared Oregon wolf. Oregon Fish and Wildlife reported Oregon 16's death on January 24, but the shooting occurred the week before. Image source: Defenders of Wildlife |
This January lamp of ice and silver
is stage light for wolf packs howling
hungry at the treeline
below clouds scuttled in thawing winds,
under this full wolf moon
collared yearling Oregon 16, a gray,
left the Blue Mountains, crossed the wrong
north border, swam the Snake,
ran his wild miles
to Boise National Forest
where a hunter shot him --
second Oregon wolf
to die in Idaho
(media darling Oregon 7
made it to California --
without a shot fired)
with all the sadness trapped
in my breastbone for refugee
mothers inside fences of mud
holding babies dying
from typhus, for children
gunned down in elementary school
and the hurts
of people shooting their brains out
in this gun-market world,
how is there room to mourn
Oregon 16
or how can
there not be room
under his namesake moon
Tricia Knoll is a Portland, Oregon poet who has howled with wolves and been bitten in the neck by a captive coyote. She is working on a poetry chapbook about humans and wildlife in the urban environment.