I dream of the wolf again.
He finds me on the fogbound trail,
anticipates my moves
with his unblinking golden eyes
and grim unsmiling mouth.
He walks at my left hand.
He walks behind my heel
and never makes a sound
but harries me along
this cindered, final path.

The trail is visible ahead,
merged with mist behind.
We have a rendezvous,
the wolf and I, alone,
just ahead of where I walk,
atop a barren hill
where this steep trail ends,
where every trail ends.

I lived in sunlight once
but it has come to this:
a refugee in fog,
a stumbler over stones,
climbing meekly up this hill,
but for the wolf, alone.

It was not so with Christ,
buffeted by crowds'
clamor in hot daylight,
reflected in their avaricious
simian dark eyes,
a spectacle for others,
denied His dignity.

If He had had a choice,
would He obey the wolf,
and would He, on the waiting hill
that I approach in mist,
look at last into the wolf's
unfathomable eyes
beyond His own reflection,
and far beyond their depths,
where light originates
in some incalculable sun,
discover that converging point
where man and wolf and God
all burn as one?

--

Jerry Jenkins
copyright November 1998