Each Other’s Measure
Suddenly we heard the sound of barking,
the snuffling nose that pheasant hunters prize:
the labrador, quartering, flushing, marking.
I glimpsed the wolfish hunger in your eyes
as Feeney zigzagged through the rows of trees,
kicking out flustered hens on either side.
From the dry switchgrass whispering at my knees
two roosters vaulted skyward, and they died.
For my part I admired your untilled fields,
sunflower stalks, wheat stubble holding snow,
each drop of moisture that a winter yields
hoarded to make your desert seedlings grow.
I judged your farming as you judged my hunting,
and neither fellow found the other wanting.
Oddly enough, not much to say about this sonnet
(would anyone have any trouble identifying its author?),
but . . . “vaulted” is an unexpected delight, immediately
short-stopped as it is by “and they died.” Technically adroit, though the exact freight of “desert” seedlings threw me off. (I.e.,where exactly are these two hunting?)
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