Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

Ninety-nine percent of old-growth Douglas firs have been cut down. Which makes this one of the last of its kind.” “Is it lonely?” I asked, aching for the roots that must be reaching to find nothing to hold. “Yes,” Dad said. Then he rested his forehead against the Douglas fir, and he did something Aggie and I had never seen him do, not before that day and never again after, he wept.

I try to explain that she’s a wild creature in mourning. But the thought of a beast grieving her mate in such a confronting, almost human way is too much for most folk. None of us can help carrying her voice within us.

“It’s not a forest. It’s one tree. One huge organism. It’s called the trembling giant and it’s the oldest living thing on this planet, and the largest. Some think it could be a million years old. And it’s dying. We’re killing it.”

My father used to say the world turned wrong when we started separating ourselves from the wild, when we stopped being one with the rest of nature, and sat apart. He said we might survive this mistake if we found a way to rewild ourselves. But I don’t know how to do that when our existence frightens the creatures we must reconnect with.

We stomped through the world and crumpled things where we walked, too human, not creature enough.

“Some people need wildness in their life.”

No one can meet your trust if you don’t offer it.