The Hunter - Catherine Brooks
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Category
Poems

The Hunter

 

The hunter stalks me in dreamtime. In the morning I wake breathless and find he is gone.

 

I go about my day under his spell. He leads me to a stark autumn garden. Dark pines rise like silent, black explosions. Oak trees rustle stiff brown foliage. Wild rose bushes are all thorns and blood drops.

 

I walk off-trail and wade through tall ochre grass that tickles my thighs. In the clearing I find a stag. Freshly fallen. Dreaming with glassy eyes open.

 

Relieved, I realize the hunter found his prey and I will live another day.

 

Catherine Brooks, 2021

Photo: Mary Porter Kerns