The Persistence Hunter

Oh, dying hind, teach me how to dress your body

I  brought away the choice cuts of your meatThe bubbling belt along the broken chain of your spineYour tender loins, never again to know the stag’s love

What would I do with the rest of you?I softly drew the arrow from your neck

Shaft bent; fletching bloodiedFive-dollar carbon arrow, feathers broken,Abandoned after its first flight

Oh, dying hind, what does it mean to be a man?

For hours, I sat still and silent in the live oakMy fingers, its boughs, both numb with the coldI watched you for a while. I drew back my bow. I wept

How many of your sisters had I let fleeInto the woods? How many of your sons?

Back home, my father awaited my returnYou were not the triumph he wanted for meBut how could I come back to him empty handed?

Oh, dying hind, how can I make my father love me?

His calloused hands guided the hacksawThrough your bones and your sinewsWhile a broken bucket filled with your blood

I wanted to hear his voice praise meWhen we shared the warmth of your flesh

When he stained my cheeks with your bloodWould he look upon me for the first timeAnd see my skin in the shape of a young man?

Oh, dying hind, you are not the first to die at our hands

Our victims slept soundly in the underbrushWhen you woke to the sweet smell of yellow cornDid you not wonder how it gilded the forest?

First, your sisters, then my own; it only takes one deathTo question the warm comfort we find in this violence

The wood becomes a passage between hunt and homeWithout care for the leaves crushed underfootSilences becomes both casualty and weapon

Oh, dying hind, how can we learn to worship and forgive?

My father grinds your legs into sausageYour shoulders into vacuum-wrapped cubesBut you liver and kidneys, your heart and your brain

Will you forgive us for dumping them in the woods?For feeding them to the buzzards and the black flies?

When your meets rots in the freezerBeside the salmon pretending to be a river stoneAnd the frog legs who finally know silence

Oh, dead hind, teach me how to love without violence