The clean air is fresh enough to bite
the throat as one walks the rocky trails.
It has just rained; the forest mould, ancient,
rises to escape the leaves, and bird song
chatters of mating, and the changes 
of the season, and the waters running.

Along the path she is jogging, running, 
she unwraps a health bar for a bite.
Up in the sky the trees twist, changes
that escape the sensibility of song,
that meander around the neat trails 
following the old pathways, ghost-ancient.

But there are deeper rituals, blood-ancient,
that twist through our veins with the dark fluid running
and off in the woods a creature knows that song.
A wolf or thing-like-wolf, with snarling bite
promised in his teeth as he lopes by the trails,
dashing from side to side as the tangent changes.

She jogs on the path as her breathing changes.
Her body also bears knowledge that is ancient,
as old as her ancestors who died making trails
in forests and hearing beasts running
until the rustle of leaves, and the leap, and bite
that put an end to their lives and their song.

She flees and behind she hears the wolf song
(or not-a-wolf) and his pacing changes,
he leaps and soars through the air to bite!
His fangs cut her cheek with an ancient
litany of fear that sets her heart to running
as blood flows down her cheek in trails.

As she flees far along the twisting trails
her inner fires and blood hear a new song,
a tale of forest life, chasing prey, running
in packs that grow with seasonal changes,
a genetic tale that is just as ancient
as her own, revealed in one sudden [i]bite.[/i]


Down trails unknown to humans she follows, her changes
rung  through deeper song, her fur shining under ancient
moon, her turn to set the prey running, deliver the swift bite.