Last Deer Hunt
It comes back to me in solemnity,
and I wistfully wish it wouldn't.
A willful case of killing it was—
a hunter doing what he shouldn't.
Father had taken me deer hunting,
thinking to make a man of a boy.
I prayed we wouldn't see a deer.
and we didn't—not one—such joy!
Daylight was dimming to dusk
when he said our hunt had ended.
We started down a rocky trail,
and at a turn—we froze, suspended.
A hunter was positioned to shoot,
crouched, rifle cradled with skill.
Target? A shiny-eyed rabbit
happily nibbling a leafy meal.
"Oh, don't," I felt to cry out,
but then a c-r-a-c-k cricked the air.
The place where the rabbit had been
was as if nothing were ever there.
"He missed," my glad heart sang;
"the rabbit's alive and is all right."
But the hunter's face was fulsome
with a beastly, loathsome blight.
As we came by the spot, I retched,
the brush was garnished with gore.
Father's silence tracked the truth;
we wouldn't go hunting any more.
How to conceive of such blood thirst—
wanton killing as an act of gladness.
I trust, however, for those so cursed
civility will supercede such madness.
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