November 15*

bushwhacking
                    the perfect description
          breaking the lifeless limbs
          squishing mosses
          crumbling aged logs
on hands and knees
following the blacktail trails

behind me a path of destruction, change
in front:
          two point buck
                    roused from his bed
                    nibbles here and there
                    antlers curve in the ghost of last light

*Copyright 2010 by Luther Allen. This poem appears in The View from Lummi Island.
Luther Allen reads from and signs The View from Lummi Island at 7:00pm, Tuesday, November 16, 2010, at Village Books.