Fall: Feeling Sixty-three

“One Thanksgiving bird,” his wife requested.

With mixed emotions (for he loves both his wife and his warm bed)
He rises before the sun
Stakes out the pond from behind his blind
And waits, fruitlessly.

At eleven, he scopes neighbouring ponds
then drops like a stone
as a honking V of slip-sliding geese disband,
descending the horizon.

Commando-style, all senses alert, he stalks the flock.
Not feeling sixty-three.

He shoots.
The blast deafening already near-deaf ears.
The flock is slow to rise, disoriented by the violent sound.
Where is the threat?

He stands
…almost upon them;
…reads their surprise as they recognize this no-safe haven,
and lift off in calamitous, cacophonous fear.

He surveys his kill:
two birds, not one,
sprawl in graceless death,
their beauty bloodied.

He swings them
by long, warm-feathered necks
into his swag bag.

He swallows and blinks hard
when one’s mate returns,
circling him too close,
bravely foolish in her grief,
her call heart-breakingly unceasing: Shoot me too.

Feeling sixty-three, his voice breaks in the re-telling.

Photos from Flickr and these photographers:

Infowlpursuit

Huskerhunter

Brantnyberg