The Dun-Colored Hills

Light breaks across

the aching brow

of the lonely hunter

hawks swoop around his head

he bows in reverence before

their skills navigating the skies

in search of cleanly plucked

feasts from the winnowing fields

I am no hunter I tramp

the roads beside the fields

one foot down then the other

a solitary parade led by songbirds

aroused from their slumber

by passing winds from unseen heights

I hear their cadence in the night

And think of Hemingway's big two-hearted river

carrying the woes of war downstream

in the wake of fishing a triumph over nature

a feast to soothe the tired brow

a prey that sheds no blood

but cleanses in streams of cold water

as light breaks across the dun-colored hills