I Heard The Tread Of Hunters

I heard the tread of hunters
Snapping forge in broken trail
Across the shell-backed, pheasant-
Fathered leaves along the tracing
Snowgold waters of October.

I heard the tread of hunters pacing
Pair by peer beneath the moldy
Harvest of the walnut trees.

I heard the tread of hunters signal
Terror to the deer
Who wandered at the grassline
Of the clover-beaded pool and
Watched them twitch their hate
For death and fly--

Fleet hooves, blood and cinder
Fading small as owls away
Their Mandarin-
Delicate flanks
Leaping in the gloom.