When we woke waiting for the coffee to brew,
they were already there, forty or more,
sitting in the first snow of the year
The bull had more points on its rack
than any we had yet seen so far
Two calves nursed under cows
while the bull stood at arms
lording over the rest of his harem
It might have been a perfect shot
for a hunter with a legal tag
in hunting season
I shoot with a camera, even so,
the elk jumped slightly as I aimed
standing in my slippers on the deck,
rambled out of the meadow
with his herd following slowly,
lifting over the horse fence
in the hazy October morning
There was a call that year
to thin the herds
to save the feed they were devouring
from the hay slides in the fields
so the cattle would not be shorted
late in the longer winter forecast
I think about the hardships on both sides
of the fences we string up
each time I look at that photograph
in the album of our mountain days