If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.
Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.
To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.
For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey
May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk
Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain
At the cycle's center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.
~James Dickey
IkeApril 4, 1995 - October 4, 2004
1 comment:
Here's a poem about Ike. You could spend days trying to say just the right things about him.
That Ike . . .
Was foxier than a hound has a right to be.
He was mad for the world,
Wild for the hunt,
Cared less about food but never saw a snatch he didn't sniff,
And then some.
Ike laughed more than he barked,
Was crazy in love with Grant
and vice versa.
And O, lord, Ike on the run
was pooch putting wind to shame.
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