The Sound of Gunshots At Dusk

Aug 21 2015

Could it be kids, taking pot-shots

at cans on fence-posts

empty bottles?

A man, instructing his son

in the finer points of gunmanship?

Or an old clunker, billowing blue-black smoke

back-firing down

some country lane?

Hunting season, again.

When men

heft freshly-oiled guns,

true their aim

down long steel barrels;

eyes narrowed,
cool metal, brushing the cheek.

When men

sport camouflage, and brilliant orange vests.

When a walk in the woods

can be deadly.

But I could never kill a deer.

My trigger-finger would freeze

squinting down the cross-hairs

at a buck in heat;

head held high, snorting steam,

magnificent rack

battle-tested.

Too beautiful to waste.

Too miraculous

to be so lightly taken.

I'd rather see him run,

muscles taut

legs a blur.

Or stand, in a clearing in the woods

skittish as a coiled spring,

fierce brown eyes

flashing light.

The calculated act

of squeezing-off a shot

seems cowardly, unredeemable;

scoring my kill

out of sight and smell

like some act of God.

Perhaps, if I were a more manly man

I would hunt, as well.

But I'd rather capture the beast

in words,

walk lightly through the bush

and observe.

The fellow feeling

of one lowly creature

for another,

equally deserving of life.

Or even fire-crackers? No, definitely rifles. And since I think it's too early for hunting season, most likely target practice. I've been hearing gunfire in the distance for several weeks. Usually in the late evening. A hunter, just itching to get going again? Kids, taking pot-shots? So even though it's still August (although it feels like fall, so far this year!), my thoughts turn to hunting, and how unpleasant I find it. Especially with all the recent controversy about trophy hunting, big-game safaris, and the targeting of endangered animals.

I know, I know; I'm being hypocritical. After all, I eat meat, wear leather shoes. The only feeble distinction I can raise in my defence is that livestock are raised for the purpose: they wouldn't otherwise have been born. And that their lives are so uninspired and bovine, they somehow seem less worthy, compared to a wild animal. As I said, pretty feeble! So perhaps it's more my repugnance at killing for sport. For subsistence, yes, In self-defence, yes. But not for fun. And to call this "sport" -- when killing is nothing such, and when guns make it anything but fair -- seems hardly sporting. Which is why manly man is most definitely said ironically.

Still, even if I was going to be ruthlessly reductive about taking life, I know I would not be able to pull the trigger if I had a magnificent deer in my sights. I'd have to kill him with my bare hands for it not to seem cowardly. And a wild animal is so essentially alive -- so full of grace and beauty and complexity -- that tossing off a shot is too easy, too disrespectful, too horrible an act of wanton destruction. The suffering of an animal always seems to cut me to the quick. The thought of inflicting that suffering is unbearable.

I use act of God. But of course, as a committed atheist, I never use the word "God" literally. It's more of a short-hand for the presumption and privilege with which we often view nature; or, to be Biblical again, the idea of "dominion" more as dominance than stewardship and custody. Which is why I end the poem with a statement of humility -- lowly creature -- as well as empathy -- equally deserving of life.