I wait and wait,
huddled in the bushes,
looking down death’s steel sight,
studying, and holding for the
right moment, holding, holding,
gazing at the animal sniffing
in the cool morning air and unsettled,
eye flitting one way, then another,
looking up, looking around.
Pleasure fills me and I feel the finger
on the trigger, the finger on cold metal,
the finger tensing with undiluted excitement,
and giving me power as master over
the life and death of this gorgeous
breathing, wild and natural creature;
but still I wait for the moment,
as the game draws closer,
ever nearer, to the fate that
waits behind the bush,
that only I control.
Then it turns and looks towards me,
perhaps sensing this fate,
perhaps knowing the time,
or smelling my sweat that
drips and drips to the ground,
and the eye is fixed and still,
and I know it is the moment
for the weapon to do its
dreadful act of duty.
It is now!
So I press the trigger firmly and
the crack sounds out across the vastness,
echoing as a death knell,
sounding out the conquest,
as the creature falls and greets the ground
for the lead has made its mark;
and other animals scatter,
responding to their instinct just to run,
and I stand and cry out with a
victory yell as big as any army
that has defeated its foe.
And I run and run towards it,
gun bobbing in the early morning breeze,
and come to its side as the blood
spurts, pumping from the wound
as the last vestige of life before
its heart is still, and the
eye is open looking back at me,
knowing and knowing well,
staring as vanquished does to victor,
as the birds sing their tunes
in dawn’s morning light,
and I smile in a pose as hunter,
silhouetted in the landscape,
gun held high and foot on
the body of this my wondrous prize.
10/1/2019