who ever sees them in this canopy of night until one barks out… tracers, hot light?
oh this ground cleared by chemical fire from orange barrels, then blessed with monsoons, I, kneeling, feeling, the modern moors’ mush wet my knees
do you see what I do? do you hear, do you fear, slant eyed demons who can blend into the ground make not a sound until…?
it is too late for me I have seen them, I have made them black with light crisscrossed with crimson too late for me, after all this fine art I crafted
other pictures I painted still dripping in my dreams you can't see them, framed by my memory, lies I wanted to believe
forty-five years to the day after I returned my grandson, six years ancient told me what happened to dinosaurs I didn't see a meteor but I don't tell him his brown eyes wide with curiosity when he rubs the scar on my arm
his tender touch takes me back to the fields where the invisible game still lay, waiting for me to return to resurrect them, and me but I cannot see, what was never there
To my knowledge, this Vietnam recollection has nothing to do with the Bruce Springsteen song, Hunter of Invisible Game, though the title itself did inspire the piece.