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