SUMMIT COUNTY - Local writer John Fayhee's essay is just one of the rousing stories in a collection of 50 Western writers' views on reintroducing wolves to Colorado. But it's a zinger.

Like many of the writers in "Comeback Wolves," he talks about the female wolf that died June 7, 2004, trying to cross Interstate 70 near Idaho Springs.

"The reaction to the wolf's Interstate 70 death was predictable here in Colorado, a state that prides itself on the delusion that this is still fundamentally a wild place. The reaction was: See. Told ya," Fayhee writes, then continues in the next paragraph, "This is a state populated by folks who think they're tough because they ski The Basin and climb fourteeners."

I suppose some readers might find Fayhee's acerbic opinion offensive, but I couldn't help but laugh.

And that's how reading "Comeback Wolves" is. The essays and poems satisfy both the emotional and intellectual realms; each author has crafted the pieces so the writing could stand up in any literary anthology, all the while painting pictures of the big bad wolf or the wolf we need to reconnect us with our wild nature.

Some authors, such as Laurie Wagner Buyer, address the argument against wolves. She married a fourth-generation cattle rancher after she developed a fondness for wolves.

"My environmentalist-preservationist attitude came smack up against the reality of a life lived close to the bone, to a livelihood dependent on keeping predators at bay to prevent stock losses," she writes in her essay, "Where There Are Wolves."

Other contributors, such as George Sibley, show another side of a weighty issue. Yes, wolves sometimes kill cattle. But what is the absence of wolves in Colorado doing to people's psyche, Sibley asks.

"(Wolves) don't just know things, they feel," Sibley writes in "Never Cry 293F." "And why would I say we need that kind of knowledge from wolves? Because it is so clear that we are far, far out of touch with any balanced relationship with the universe, and maybe wolves are better at that than we are. Why else would we be inviting back fellow large predators that we'd earlier killed off, if not for some kind of consultation?"

The Western writers range in experience with wolves, from those who have never seen or heard the wild animals to those who have seen "the glint of his gold eyes" and those who work on wolf restoration projects.

Sections of the book review the power of legends and our culture's lingering fears and hatred of the "big bad wolf"; the need to update the destructive myths with new ideas; the wolves' wild howls that transport us to primal fears, as well as to a deep yearning for a restored world; ways we share the spirit and wisdom of wolves; and the practicalities of restoring wolves to Colorado.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés, who wrote "Women Who Run with the Wolves," considers how humans share many of the same characteristics as wolves. She says like wildlife, the wild soul is an endangered species.

"It is not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own wild and soulful natures fades," she writes. " ... It is not too late to save the soul - the individual soul and the soul of the world."

In a sense, all of the writers of "Comeback Wolves" are howling to save something deeper than simply an endangered species. They are telling their stories to save much more, and their calls are powerful.



Essays and Poems

- Published by Johnson Books; 3005 Center Green Drive, Suite 220, Boulder, CO, 80301.

- www.johnsonbooks.com.

- 207 pages

- Soft cover, $15



Kimberly Nicoletti can be reached at (970) 668-3998, ext. 245, or at knicoletti@summitdaily.com.