they will tell you a story of the wolf and the elk,
a clean, simple story,
if you swallow it whole.
of a predator,
noble,
on a spectral stalk,
and a consumer,
rampant,
who lost its control.
they will point to the valley,
now green and now full,
and say,
"see?
the balance,
the beautiful,
the whole."

but i am the red stone that bleeds in the sun,
the clay of the river,
the unspoken one.
i remember the hunger,
the unending bite,
the elk,
who was only a force in the night,
driven by thirst,
by a need without name,
to strip the green willow,
to starve his own claim.
he wasn't a villain,
he was a great,
breathing weight,
a logic of hunger,
a proxy of fate.

and i am the wolf,
yes,
the tooth and the fear,
the regulator's shadow,
both distant and near.
i am not the savior the white shirts have penned,
i am the hard consequence,
the means to an end.
i cull the great hunger,
i shift the great flow,
i make the elk nervous,
and the green willows grow.

but the story they tell you,
it stops at this part,
with the wolf as the hero,
so cunning and smart.
they don't speak of the red,
of the stone underneath,
the truth of the valley,
a world unto its own;
that the wolf is a verdict,
the elk is a teeth,
and the balance is built on a bedrock of bone.

the yellow stone's promise,
the red stone's old pain,
are one and the same thing;
the sun and the rain.
the system is brutal,
it's perfect,
it's deep,
it's not for the fragile,
the gentle,
the sheep.
for the wolf is a pressure,
the elk is a press,
and the "balance" they sell you is a beautiful mess
of life built on dying,
of peace built on strife,
the terrible,
wonderful calculus of life.