The Hunt

The air is cold,
My breath is froze,
The day ain’t yet  five hours old,

The sky  is pale,
The half moon bright,
The sun barely sheds its first light,

There’s a breeze a’blowin,
Its comin from the east,
Cascading down the snow capped peaks,

In the chill morn air,
A snowflake falls,
It enters the world without a care,

Off in the distance,
The coyotes play,
They yip and they yap to welcome the new day,

I sit there,
My  bow across my knees,
As I wait for a buck to exit the trees,

That’s when I hear it,
A light crackle and crunch,
It’s a sound that makes my muscles bunch,

Not ten feet to my left,
I see my prize wander by,
And I shift silently in my tree stand up high,

He’s ignorant of my existence,
Or at least that’s what I believe,
As I see him duck under a low leaning tree,

I nock and draw,
In one liquid move,
And release as I exhale,

My arrow flies fast,
And it flies true,
It hits home and passes right on through,

He kicks and takes off,
Barreling through the close knit brush,
Oblivious to the pain now lancing out from his breast,

I stand and stretch,
And prepare to give chase,
But I’ll set my own pace,

I set off on his trail,
Following the tears of blood,
They are so frequent that I can not fail,

And sure enough,
There he lies,
So I walk forward and claim my prize.