I look into the dark pools of Akela's eyes.
Her pain has distanced her from me
as if she is looking up from some deep canyon.
I wait for the vet to come.
Press my forehead to her sweet suffering face.
My human tears, the only comfort I can offer,
Break lose from my clenched eyelids
To wet the soft fur on her cheek.
From the depths of her pain I hear a far-away river
Like white wolves running wildly
Flowing freely through a deep dark canyon.
It is a river of wolves calling her to join them
Offering her rightful place among them
Washing away her pain with their joy.
We pull Akela back.
To the vet's needles in an occluded vein.
To the aching calls of a small girl
Who loves her beyond the measure of all tears.
In her eyes I still see the river of wolves
Yet she forgives us our guilty love
Our clumsy attempts to save her life.
She stays to teach the child
To trust that what we no longer see still exists.
To know wholeness greater than pain.
To understand that sometimes
The most loving embrace is an open hand.
I stretch my arms to hold
A pain beyond my reach.
I watch with an ache in my womb
As soul-child is made tender and open
By Akela's terrible need to die.
The child, guided only
By a communion of deep animal-knowing,
Learns to first touch that compassionate knife
To her own breast --
Helps her friend to cross unseen waters, alone.
Akela looks back at me
Blesses the living with soft dark eyes
And goes to take her place in the river of wolves
Set free through a hole in a little girl's heart.

-borrowed & adapted for akela from-
"A RIVER OF HORSES" by R. Sweet
ANIMALS AS TEACHERS & HEALERS~by Susan McElroy