Where the river abandons herself to the creek
and the mudbank is cratered with crabclaws
waits the old man.

He doesn't know his years
but his ears are a sonic gift
catching the tonal variations of tides
seemingly for eons
evolving with the mangrove map
into a flawless tracker
of how far the moon would recline
for ***** to be holed out
and what shoreline the water would touch
before the shrimps starlight driven
make a beeline for the net.

I encountered him once
in the absurdity of a time
when I was high
and he lowly crouching
was making art by the creek.

Who was the poet
I could never tell.

Oh, black Persian cat!
Was not your life
already cursed with offspring?
We took you for rest to that old
Yankee farm,—so lonely
and with so many field mice
in the long grass—
and you return to us
in this condition—!

Oh, black Persian cat.

River stones, leaves, branches, trees
The hunter runs amongst the snow
Paw prints follow hoof prints
It is the hunt
He is the hunt

It turns, it leaps
He gains a step, he gains a heartbeat
He smells the sweat he tastes the blood
The hunt is him,
he's lost within it

Brown figure he hunts,
So vague, but the scent is strong
A greying image, cascading white fur
The scent is changing

Where is the fear, the scent of prey
Confusion racks him, where are the hooves
He follows paw-prints, he doesn't understand
He's hunted game before what is this

He can see her now, she is no prey
She is white with fur, and barely pants
She smells of wolf, she smells the same
she leaves the scent of a hunter

He's caught now in a game he fears
This is no hunt, this is no game
He hunts not pray, this is unknown
This is the beginnings of a dance

Where lovers lie, a foreign land
A duet that plays in silence
There is no hunt in loves embrace
There is only the melody of yearning

This dance he still finds foreign
This dance he has failed at
This dance that he does not know
This dance that could break him