Steppenwolf
A tribute to my father’s shape and shadow
The shadow of my father's judgement draped itself over my shoulders, hiding them like another skin, and overshadowing the energetic and dynamic youth I once was, and still hold at heart, loins and legs, feet and hands. Though at times I fiercely denied resemblance, I clearly "became" him in form and also absorbed aspects of his demeanor, not merely in form, but also in psyche, in spite of past and best and contrary efforts. His mantle passed to me and over me, and then suddenly dissolved, like a ghostly vapor whose fear I once held and held onto for far too long. That vapor, which once and so long clouded my vision and shrouded my felt sense of quick and hearted life, was shivered off and finely finally lifted by the graceful breath and feel of life itself. The wolf carried and cared for by the boy within never died, but only grew large in secret, behind bright eyes and light heart, until its shape wholly filled and consumed the man in which he lived. The wolf now freed from his only apparent confines grins and growls, rumbles and scowls, runs and prowls, hunts and howls, shed his man-skin and lifts his heart and voice in song with his kind and kin under a languid and lofty mooooooooooon.