Young Poets' Corner


Mare and Wolf


Mare and Foal


 The mare.
 Her tiny foal sighs in her sleep, lying beside her.
 She grazes.
 She and her foal have wandered away from the herd.






The Wolf The wolf.
Her pups are hungry.
There has been no meat in her small pack for a long time.
She smells meat.
What is it?
She takes another sniff.
"Ah."she thinks,"Horse."
She stalks her.

The mare cocks her ears.
Did she hear something?
She hears the rustling of the wolf.
She lifts her head.
She must protect her foal.

The wolf sees the mare.
She is too big for her to take down alone.
Then she sees the foal.
It doesn't have a great amout of meat, but it will do.

The mare bumps her foal.
It gets up on its tiny legs and tries to nurse.
The mare steps out of her reach.
She comes behind her foal and nudges her with her nose.
The foal looks at her with curious eyes and jumps to a trot.

The wolf sees the mare moving the foal along.
She won't let her get away.
Then she looks around.
There is something wrong.
Where are the other horses?

As the mare nudges the foal along she gives a whinny.
Are the other horses near?
She knew that leaving the herd when The Stallion and
lead mare were asleep would result in disaster.
She herds her foal along a little faster.

The wolf is confused.
All horses had travelled together before.
She chases the horse and foal into a clearing.
She stops.

The Stallion neighs to her.
He sees the wolf.
He runs to the mare and nips her.
She bunches up with the rest of the mares.
One mare, bigger than the others, joins The Stallion.
The Stallion neighs a battle cry he used only when he fought with other stallions or animals.
He runs up to the wolf.

The wolf looks at the other horses.
She won't be able to get the foal without help after all.
She hears the stallion's cry and sees him running at her.
She retreats into a patch of thornbushes.
She runs into a patch without many thorns.
She runs into the center of the bush.
She can hear the stallion hacking at the bush with his hooves.

Wild StallionThe Stallion is furious.
The wolf can not escape!
He flails at the bush with his hooves.

The wolf tilts her head back and howls.
Other wolves howl back.
She tells them she found meat but needs help.
They howl back, "We will come."

The wolf sees another way out.
There was another patch with a fairly clear spot.
She crawls out that way.
She glances back at the horses.
None have seen her except the first mare she saw.
But the mare doesn't whinny to the stallion.
She gives her one hard look and looks away.
But in that one look there was a message,
"There aren't many of us left.
Leave us alone and we will thrive.
Hunt us and we will become too scarce to hunt."
The wolf sniffs.
Is that deer?
Yes.
She howls to the other wolves,"Don't worry.I've got it."



By 10 year old Alyssa, who owns a pony mare named Jubilee and a Mor-Ab gelding named Dakota Sunrise.



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The illustrations on this page are from drawings by Will James.