It said only one thing, over and over, a repetition of inescapable anguish
The hunt feeds them, nourishes them like dioxide, waters their desert-leaves with the promise of spring-blood. It flashes through their hearts and their veins like a comet dying out too quickly in the atmosphere. There is no wish in their bellies, no long-dead constellation story, there is only want and need.
They hunt not because they must. It would be enough to rend the forest apart and feast on all those whispering “not I, not I, not I”. It would be enough to fill their evergreen stomach with vole, and fox, and hare until the forest was as watered as their need.
We do not hunt because we must. We hunt for the quiver in our pollen blood when the mountain lion snarls and bares her teeth at us. We hunt for the rejoice in our evergreen berries as they promise water to the desert-leaves covering our pines. We hunt. We hunt. We hunt not for the aftermath of it but for the violence in it.
The lion is baring her teeth at us now and we can see each drop of bloody spit hitting the bare-bough trees when she steps to meet us. Her snarl is a mere distant storm to the consuming hurricane winds of us. We could carry her hunger in the single hollow curl of a single one of our claws.
And we will carry her in our hollies, and raspberries, and evergreens.
Together they step towards the snarling lion and they count each festering bit of flesh hanging from her teeth. They count each torn out joint scattered around her like petals in the autumn. They want to tell her, you are sick, sick, sick but their mouth does not know how to make any sound but death and wrath. The blood dapples the fur and moss of their paw as they drag a warning into the earth like all the cuts they will drag across her ribcage. When they roar the sound is a eulogy instead of a roar.
When we roar the trees shiver on the mantle of their god. The sound feeds us almost as much as the feast will. But when we leap at the lion as she leaps at us….
And when we latch our teeth on her throat and pull…
When we start to eat her the trees do not shiver. They sing.
They hunt not because they must. It would be enough to rend the forest apart and feast on all those whispering “not I, not I, not I”. It would be enough to fill their evergreen stomach with vole, and fox, and hare until the forest was as watered as their need.
We do not hunt because we must. We hunt for the quiver in our pollen blood when the mountain lion snarls and bares her teeth at us. We hunt for the rejoice in our evergreen berries as they promise water to the desert-leaves covering our pines. We hunt. We hunt. We hunt not for the aftermath of it but for the violence in it.
The lion is baring her teeth at us now and we can see each drop of bloody spit hitting the bare-bough trees when she steps to meet us. Her snarl is a mere distant storm to the consuming hurricane winds of us. We could carry her hunger in the single hollow curl of a single one of our claws.
And we will carry her in our hollies, and raspberries, and evergreens.
Together they step towards the snarling lion and they count each festering bit of flesh hanging from her teeth. They count each torn out joint scattered around her like petals in the autumn. They want to tell her, you are sick, sick, sick but their mouth does not know how to make any sound but death and wrath. The blood dapples the fur and moss of their paw as they drag a warning into the earth like all the cuts they will drag across her ribcage. When they roar the sound is a eulogy instead of a roar.
When we roar the trees shiver on the mantle of their god. The sound feeds us almost as much as the feast will. But when we leap at the lion as she leaps at us….
And when we latch our teeth on her throat and pull…
When we start to eat her the trees do not shiver. They sing.
