Buchanan’s wolves

Ellesmere Island the tenth biggest
Island in the world
Far up near the North Pole
And I have just been hurled
Up here with my cameras
My tent and beating heart
To get close to some wild wolves
And I am just about to start

That sky scape is peach pink
The horizon flaming red
The mountains with their ice kissed summits
The wilderness has led
Me to see close up the wild
Wolves the slopes are formidable
I do feel like a child

Sent into the perilous wastes
An electric fence and more
A certain trepidation
That I, dare not ignore
A symmetry of harmony
On the edge of somewhere far
And a pack of truly wild boys
Who just follow their star

Here I am alone up here
Where these wolves have never seen
Any human being before
And they are lean
Inquisitive and edgy
But as cautious probably
As I am so unknowing
Of exactly where they be

The temperature can fall away
To minus 50
And that’s cold
4 months of night imagine that
No light no sun nothing to hold
Onto really just the thought
16 weeks of the blackest woe
Everyday they need to catch
They need some heat you know

There are great massive
Prehistoric looking musk ox
Gladiatorial fighters
With massive heads like rocks
When they charge 400 kilo’s
Colliding at full force
Like a clap of thunder
These bulls are so on course

The pack need all this strength and power
They need the flesh to keep
Them strong to add the muscle
In their den the pups now creep
lunar she’s the mother
The carer she must see
Her babies get the kind of food
They need and constantly

Howling communication
Is heard some 10 long miles
A choir who sing in harmony
They recognise the trials
And the small transgressions
The honour and the fight
Anguish and adversity
And just when to take flight

Romulus is the apex male
The daddy of the pack
2 playful yearlings
Positioned often at the back
1000 square mile hunting places
Hunting twice a day
Needing to protect the pups
Or else of course they pay

Buchanan’s wolves are in the spotlight
hares they gallop well
Scruffy is one of the youths
Whose curious to tell
To get in close and chew the cameras
And steal a stool and run
Try to disengage the fence
Such courage in the sun

The pups showed up on camera
They came out of the den
3 of them no fear at all
Nothing there and then
There they were such big black eyes
Staring out at me
Right into the cameras lens
Where they had to be

Born deaf and blind these little souls
But seemingly it feels
That the pack has kind of adopted me
Which of course appeals

6 hour hunting sessions
Appear to be the plan
Life is getting harder
Even one lone man
Has got to grips with caring
And sharing this bold pack
I am leaving for a little while
But In 6 weeks I will come back

The 3 pups I called Banjo
Lola and sweet meg
She was the runt alas for her
Skinny in the leg
They had caught a Musk Ox
And were finishing off the meat
It’s all about decisions
Bad ones can unseat

It’s all about the instinct
And the knowledge they have accrued
It’s all about good judgement
The family does exude
Confidence and togetherness
And guile and adversity
The bonding and the character
And the strength and temerity

The threadbare warrior oxen
Live on meagre diets they
Go into crashing combat
That charges up their day
It’s all about the hunt for them
Across the marbled sky
The skewers and the falcon
Vie for mortals from on high

The wolves are so formidable
Their attitude is good
They are family orientated
As families really should
They all go much much further
Into the mountains they
Need to eat just anything
Anything each day

Meg is gone now apparently
The pack they may have found
Themselves close to another pack
And couldn’t go to ground
Fast enough and Meg was lost
She was weak anyway
And the wild ones have to all be strong
And eat something every day

Buchanon is a gentle man
And you could feel his pain
The fact that Meg had bought it
A link in his chain
Apparently was broken
You could feel the solace he
Experienced in that moment
And you felt that instantly

The wilderness is no place for the weak
That message hung
From the peach sky
From the running wolves
The heroes seemed unsung
They Symbolise the wild boys
The family and the lengths
They go to to remain together
Which are the wolves true strengths

Finally a selfie
Sadness and a feeling
That I had got close to them all
Which had been so revealing
A gentle man with a camera
Compared to those
with a gun
Gave an insight into freedom
In the land with little sun