Hunting Ground

a poem for my father

Hunting Ground

As a child I sat long afternoons
under the eave of oaks
at this cornfield’s edge, waiting
with my father for birds to quarry
from the dry blue sky.
They would hurtle over the chicken houses
or down sunburned rows
of stubble, mostly too high or far
to risk our weapons. But sometimes
near enough to hear
the whistling beat, near enough
to practice our skill at killing
for sport. The rush of reward
for good aim and timing
always died with the bird, and I watched
my father grimace as he gathered
the ash-colored wings.
It was years before I realized
how he hated to kill anything,
how he had not been waiting
as we sat still as monks
in the dappled autumn light, breathing
the world in silence, together.

~

From The Open Gate: New & Selected Poems by Emily Hancock (St Brigid Press, 2017)

(EEH)

And my sincere thanks, as always, for your connection and support.