National Adult Literacy Database

May 13, 1996

Our story this week is drawn from a collection produced by the students of the school at the Stony Mountain Correctional Institute in Stony Mountain, Manitoba. Jonathon McDonald's haunting poem speaks of the spiritual strength that the natural world's beauty and solitude may provide to us in difficult times.

Dearest Love: "Call of theWild"

by Jonathon McDonald

In a valley majestically sunken so deep,
I knelt by the water's edge as the sun set,
It was then I'd heard that loon's call,
I shuddered in fear to hear it all alone;

As his echo was left without a reply,
It was there I felt so close to that loon that day,
He appeared out in front of me not so far away,
He noticed me there and then felt not so alone;

As I gently rose and wiped a tear from my eye,
I wished your love was all but not gone,
Where had I gone wrong I began to wonder why.
I kept on walking singing our song;

As I was about to go over the crest of the hill,
His call once again was heard lonely and sad,
As I stood tall with all my pride,
I returned his call, call of the wild.

[Used with permission, from Spirit Within Our Dreams, Editorial Collective of Meegwetch Wichiwakan, Stony Mountain, Manitoba, 1994, p. 39]