This time of year what’s left of light
begins to flash behind Red Peak
at four on a frigid afternoon
I brake the car on the snow packed road
rattling over an old stone bridge
to watch elk feeding in an aspen grove
stripped of leaves and filling with snow flakes,
the bull and cows, young and unafraid
looking up from the last of fallen gold,
so lean and muscular and perfect in their hide
they seem to me defiant
Ranchers say elk know the habits of hunters,
the time and place of hunting season
They will go into a meadow no man can hunt,
stand fearless on the shoulder of the highway,
nostrils flexing forest wisdom
I’ve sent 50 caliber tracers through the dark
to faceless men, seen bodies curled into themselves,
made a vow never again to kill
yet wonder how elk ignore the rumm and roar
cars make grinding a curve, idling at a standstill
They turn now and then to watch me,
a silhouette framed in an open car window who’s
chanced upon raw truth in naked haunches
I would sit here until true dark
but uphill she waits in the house
we built where then there were no houses
Soon, the small herd will leap fences
in the rush of sex and snow and sorrow
as we once felt the soft wet flakes
melting through our hair