Decided to post a hunting poem since hunting is such a big part of the Thanksgiving season in Wisconsin. Whether you’re hunting deer, bargains, or just snuggling in at home with good food, enjoy the poem and spend some time outside today.
Hunting Weekend
Hunters
in their layers
and big boots
have left to sit in trees.
My job is to keep the fire stoked
and soak in tree-calm and solitude.
A strip of orange
pops off the horizon
behind the dark stems,
day grows.
There is a thin layer
of crunchy frost on every surface
becoming prisms in the light.
Air is cold-smoked
sticking chill to you
like June bug legs.
Turkeys scratch out their calls.
alto booms in the distance
reverberate to my ear
filling my head
for an instant.
Coyotes
like middle school girls
cackle and cavort.
They have found a kill
before the hunter.
Hunting so long a part of nature
that the woods seem alive
welcoming the culling of the herd
grown fat on farmers’ corn and beans.
We live together with deer,
turkeys, and coyotes
all serenaded by owl in the gloaming
that will bookmark the light
of this late autumn day.
A smaller herd prepared
for the long hungry winter
and our stash refilled
for warm venison chili
and steaks pounded thin and tender.
This year
there will be a new mount
on the wall
preserved in his glory
sparking stories of the hunt
for generations to come.
