It’s October

and the woods are riddled with hunters.

Mostly guys, a few women,

they’re adorned in orange,

toting shotguns,

and ready to kill the first creature

bigger than a chipmunk

that wanders into their rifle sights.

The forest is mostly this empty chamber

but, come fall,

every slot is filled with death.

My advice is not be a deer

or a bear or duck

when the likes of you are in season.

But nature doesn’t listen to me.

The song of autumn

is an array of blasting weaponry

Hunters high-five as

the body count ratchets up.

I find that I can’t get inside

the proud stag’s mind.

What he feels, all he fears,

are unknown to me.

But the hunter is a mystery to me also.

Never in my life

have I felt the urge

to take up a gun and shoot something.

So hunting’s this collision course

between a prey I have no concept of

and a predator whose sensibilities

have nothing in common with mine.

I can only make it cruel, a waste.

I could never get by on understanding.