Many years have passed
I recall the sea planes pontoon’s wake unveiling
A Kodiac Island land mass
Westerly wind prevailing
A hunting journey(gift) for my father,
willfully undertaken
Unbeknownst; not so smooth sailing
Million year old glacial ice amassed
[The pressure of it’s assembly results in almost non meltability]
Surrounded by a hundred foot tall deciduous forest
The thin, fragile topsoil is cause for massive shallow root systems
With a raven chorus
A son’s gesture; romanced
Although, (In retrospect) not earned
Fiddle head ferned,
Rock outcropped,
living in rain gear, hip waders and plywood floor cook tent[op]
Primordial seascape,
with the plane’s departure, little means of escape
I measure my foot in the larger black sand impression of another
A moment of existence temporally imprinted in silica
Never venturing out after sun down,
“The big boys owned the night”
A Volkswagen size Blond bear,
walking the very same trail as(taught by) ancestors,
from stream to lair
The will to excavate a ten foot earthen crater,
in search of a lone mouse
A camp fire made in the hatamack crotch of a tall, white Cedar
With the help of a pulp novella
Subterranean earthen, rock overhang house
My father’s constant complaints
about the camp’s lack of comforts
and his inability to defecate
[Not so much a word from the seventy five year, guide leader]
He still could scale trees like a Porcupine
He later passed kidney stones in the back of a pickup truck (Non sedate)
Accompanied by ominous snow laden blue scenery
as seen through binocular greenery
A toilet tissue strewn log seat
surrounded by Portobello-like vegetarian meat
I, armed with a .358 Winchester, single shot custom Phil Oxley pistol
In my guides’ hand, a 1930’s octagonal barreled,
lever action big bore rifle
In search through,
ice cream headache glacial streams brimming with grotesquely
disfigured,
Salmon
in a seemingly reverent death struggle
Easy pickens for Grizzly and man alike
A mealy remainder,
with no semblance of prior culinary flavor
Bears consider meat behind the head best,
discarding all the rest
Broad shoulders rub trees at my head’s height
Hairs shed in season’s late
Urine deposited at a territorial intersection,
a hopeful stumble on a possible mate
Thorn’s of the Hell’s club, surround
Once implanted, resulting in an infected mound
Eight day’s swollen hand
Finally, like a missile, the thorn
rises out of it’s epidermal silo,
having finished it’s errand
The fish diet is fattening the clan up for a Winter’s bed
With the growing of a waxy plug inside
so as to not have to wake up to eliminate
[I would think a long range sleeping, Astronaut’s dream]
Heart rate slows, seemingly dead
Early next season, full time cranberry hunts,
to clear the colon
Metamucil, magenta
In the fall, a possible fur ball,
off-spring
Dietary changes with the new moss,
covering long ago discarded copper mines
Orange tinted bed rock run off,
while silt suffocates the fish egg stock
Bull moose muddy tracks belie their presence
Ragged velvet covered antler’s rack
Breaking two inch thick Alders with chest alone
A thousand pound Big Mac
There are times when all the hair stands on your neck,
and you realize, your vulnerable place
Although never actually seeing the reason
Wet day after day navigating hours of briar and stone
Wrinkled white toes
Late October mountain snows
Pace
A constantly talking lower back,
from a fifty pound internal frame pack
Reptile less environ
Talking raven’s yack
The evening sky’s clarity reveals deep space
Below cutthroat and speckled trout
After nine days trek, I’ve lost sight
of the “Trophy” hunt
Always hating a taxidermy mount
The Harvard Club’s glass eyed animal walls
Putting Willis and Geiger outfitters on the map
Later, reduced to Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom
Reroute
Coming across a more than weathered, heart Redwood shack,
inside a broken bear trap,
an obsolete beaver rack
and amenities, abandon
Jar of yellowed harbor seal oil
Rusted out, cast iron kettle, long ago on the boil
I picture this hard life tanned into the skin of the builder
River beaver
A story over a fold up aluminum cook stove,
about the kayak flipper and Walrus eater;
Orca
Dental scrimshaw donor
Ulu cleaver
I do finally get the shot,
a large graying male
emerges from a thicket, one hundred fifty yards
up wind, down hill
(Like he owns the place)
Zeroed in with a scope’s technology
The pressing of the wide checkered trigger…
Something in me doesn’t want the kill
I lift my cheek off my shoulder and
bend my out stretched arm
Hearing my guide start his count to synchronize
“You don’t kill a Kodiak, you break him down”
Then his one open eye stares at me,
with incredulity
I’ve lost the will
[a pacifist’s pill?]
I wasn’t here for me
We came half way across the earth
to sleep in a wet sleeping bag berth
My idea of a gesture
for my birth.
