Our urban wolf 

is howling 

from rooftops,

balconies and open windows.

She is trapped,

hemmed in,

ringed, caged,

hunted and afraid.

Our urban wolf 

is pacing 

up and down hallways,

dusting the furniture

with lick and spit,

howling in stairwells,

scratching at doorways

to be let out.

Our urban wolf 

is remembering

a time when her cousins

ran in packs

through deep forest

before all the trees

were chopped to make

flat packed furniture 

or ships to defeat an armada.

Now we stand facing

a new armada,

nature’s own.

A fleet so fleet footed

that it can out run

even the fastest wolf

on the chase.

In her howling,

maybe our wolf

will begin to remember

the wisdom of her wild cousins

the ones who are left,

to listen to the alpha,

the mother of the pack,

for she is the glue that binds.

Maybe as our pacing slows

we will remember the bonds

which are important:

how to nurture and care

for our sick and injured,

how we transfer knowledge 

to our young,

how we play together,

how we mourn together,

how to grieve our loss

in our enforced self-solitude.

In our howling,

maybe we will remember 

we belong to something greater,

that our connectivity relies on love,

and on an old collective wisdom

of our wolf pack elders.

Listen to their stories,

for there are many to be told.

My nana speaks in the 1970s:

Family life is the most grateful thing.

The most precious thing in life

is for family to keep together.

The world is the same

as it’s always been

down through the ages,

wars, good and bad

then it seems to turn over

and restart again.

I fully believe one day

there will be a nuclear war,

there will be survivors,

they will be thankful to be alive

and they will start the world again.

The world is so beautiful that it never dies.

The world doesn’t die, 

it is the people in it that die,

the generations. 

The main thing is 

to keep the family life together

Family means something, 

especially when you are old

and you haven’t got anybody.

There is more loneliness in this world

than there is of wealth.

You hear of dear old people 

not seeing anybody for days

because people are not so friendly

like they used to be. 

My nana, Ida Marion Groom, grew up in Devonport,  survived two world wars and the swine flu epidemic during WW1. Here you can listen to her describing that experience. She was a great storyteller.

The Woolf furniture label was a piece I found in Middlesbrough, where my husband’s nana, Elenora, lived during WW2. She was Italian, born in Scotland, and married a Middlesbrough Yorkshireman. He was killed fighting in Italy, in the Trasimene Line, leaving her a widow, with two young children to bring up. She often faced discrimination, had her windows smashed, because she was of Italian heritage. Neighbours and the local Italian community rallied round to support her.