The Practice

 

 

To hunt is to spend long romantic hours with the land,

settling slowly into her innermost innards.

 

To hunt, I think, is much like holding vigil:

sometimes, of course, doing the breathless hunting thing:

of actually watching prey.

The rest of the time, I must confess, I'm mostly sitting,

taking in the most personal details of the daily forest.

 

The impeccable indigo parabolae of a steller's jay in flight;

the jaunty leaps of friend coyote sniping voles from the tall grass;

and- just yesterday, from nearly half a mile away,

I sat and watched with blushing intimacy as

a herd of elk, twohundredhead or more

arose from slumber:

each golden neck unfurling gracefully

from where they had lain curled.

The sweetness almost did me in.

 

Above me, nightly, great Orion rises gently to recline

just so along the crests of our home mountains:

totally at rest—and yet with his bow tightly drawn. Last night

there was a great-horned owl,

perched monumental on one tall stump. In moments she

unfurled her mighty wings to swoop

an unsuspecting rabbit from the field,

silent as a dying breath.

 

I guess the upshot is, I'm not the only hunter out here.

 

To hunt. To be hunted:

this is all the gift.

 

To hunt is to be swallowed whole by land.

Some days, chewed up and spat,

and others, just gulped right down—

and—if I'm lucky—

what comes out again of me is more

absorbed in wildness

than before.