The Elk Whistle


Sweat lodge left
with breath of hot rock
escaping to morning cold.

Smudge of white sage lofting up
through yellow sycamore leaves
to a dark blue dawn, hiding

any lingering scent of the human.
One last honoring song for the elk
whistled through an elderberry flute

and the hunter strings his bow.
Invisibility is the way of the hunt
so he stalks with feathered step

blending into background brush.
Movement behind that toyon bush
and peeking around its branches

an elk doe stalks the hunter.
"Who is it that whistled?"
her heart needs to know.

And aiming straight for the soul
she lets fly her own medicine arrow
for which the hunter did not prepare.

A transformation unfolds.
Dropping his bow he falls to all fours.
Hands and feet morph to cloven hooves.

Scent and sound expand
to a whole new dimension of reality
an awareness only touched upon

in vision quest or dream.
Long hair hardens to a tall rack of antlers
and striking this new weapon

against the gnarled trunk of a valley oak
he looks back into the brown eyes
of a beautiful doe.  And he whistles!

And under a distant sycamore
in the cold glow of a rising sun
another hunter strings his bow.