I.
Step the place I step,
he mentioned, fast,
quiet over oak root.
The hushed path rose
to satisfy him.
By footfall and rifle glint,
rustle of hoof
and pulp of blood,
he led me deep
the place the gut-shot buck
had made its briary mattress.
Even from the shining
again of his scalp,
I knew his face,
shame-shadowed
at his personal poor purpose,
on the animal’s ache
grown shadow-long
with the autumn of nightfall.
Thrice we neared
the deer, and every
it heard our ragged breath
and stood and lumbered
past sight.
Come swamp’s edge
he turned skyward.
Gun on his again,
he climbed the bur oak.
His eyes hungered
over earth
and located no signal.
I watched from under.
He seemed previous mild,
previous realizing.
How the buck
would die: sluggish
and alone within the mouth
of the woods.
The various methods
it will change into.
Scarlet waxing
the moon of a tick.
Blackberry sheen
of a buzzard’s coat.
II.
Warmth pearled our pores and skin
as we adopted
up the mountain’s face.
His concept, to tie our coats
to the trunks of timber.
The clumsy knots
of their arms
a present, an embrace.
Sophie so small that
solely a sapling would do.
We moved on,
lightened, cooled.
The air thinned
and the land went blue.
How good it felt,
to toil awhile in solar
for the sight
of a rippling valley.
It was Christmas.
Earth was new.
Then nightfall.
Then darkness
like a minnow internet.
Then us, its catch.
Then the trail
swallowed by brush.
Then, once more,
the needling chilly.
Our arms had been naked.
We didn’t know
he was afraid.
At the same time as he climbed
the white pine
to seek for some
signal of dwelling.
At the same time as we shivered
on the earth under.
Look how he sways
within the treetop,
we thought.
See how his head
brushes the sky.
