Buck Fever

Buck Fever

Since early dawn, through manzanita brush,

across rush streams and shallows, working up

to toplands where the giant redwoods crush

their green lips to the new moon’s spilling cup;

since dawn we mark his tracks and trailed him downfar grooves and clearings, fields and vales until,breasting a summit, we beheld his crownLifted a moment on a neighbor hill.

Stealthy then, our hearts aflame,

we made our way across to him, silent as death,

On hands and knees and stomachs-half afraid

to let out or draw in a single breath;

and then we saw him all, thrice twenty feet

Away-no more!-like something in a dream,

one hoofed upraised, his satin flanks abeat,

from out his nostrils brief, white clouds of steam.

My gun was up, I had a perfect sight,

my finger wrapped the trigger as if wired ...

“a lifetime’s chance,” they said in camp that night:

but I say no man living could have fired!