Hunting Winterberries and Gathering Beauty in Earnscliffe--For Lucas

And on these late November days
when the now cold air feels thin as hunger, 
smells of wood smoke, leaf rot, mud.


We drive the narrow side roads, scoping out
winterberries not yet eaten by
Robins-- or buried by February's snow.


You see some, and I pull off where I think the ground will hold us.
We get out--you with the snips and your camera-- and tromp down into sodden ditches,
still wet with last night's rain. 


They like their feet soused- swamp holly--
and now my feet are drenched and cold too, damn rotten, rubbers.
You don't hear me. Crouched, keen and sighting out a shot. 


This time a greyed and time worn fence post, your unmarked target.
A pair of starlings nested here last summer -now long abandoned
amid golden grasses almost as tall as you, at newly thirteen.


An instant later we hear gun fire --hunters.
This is pheasant territory. Goose too, you remind me.
Perhaps the pair of ring- necks we saw last week are safe, still as decoys.

Soon after, men wave as they pass, their trailer full of guns, ammo, untold fallen prey.
We pause, gather our winterberries, red osier dogwood. You get your shot, retreat
watching as a herd of sheep graze nearby, undeterred by fear or encroaching darkness.


No blood shed in our ditch. Only greys, golds and reds of late November remain.
And the ache--do not forget the ache--that stark and lonely beauty within calls out.
Pay attention. Time is passing. We turn on the heater. Drive away. 

Jill MacCormack