Before Daybreak

The selfish intensity and passion of each moment
The memories that flood with each repetition
Different locales and different companions, but
Of course, mostly solitary, trying mightily to be
Part of the age-old blood sport of hunter and prey
The cavernous darkness outside the truck windows
Or the glow of fresh fallen snow beyond the tent flap
The smell of gun oil and leather
the feel of cartridges-weight forward of course
This should be shared, you feel, but company
Would compromise the purity of emotion
This is better by tenfold, I reason
Than the months of daydreams and anticipation
Hours before the light, the darkness is my cocoon
In the early mountain chill or desert freshness
Moon glow silhouetting high rim rock,
Ghostly saguaros or extinct volcanoes
Some night hikes that lead to dawn vantage points
Will be remembered for a lifetime-elk bugles thundering
From all points of the compass,
Climbing Malapai peaks with glasses fogged
Or the skunk at half a pace when I found God was merciful
It is the darkness, the before, like a book unopened
That you know will thrill and engross you, memories unrivaled
Peppersauce Canyon, Cerro Prieto, Roberts Mesa or Kitty Jo mine
Some to be revisited, none to be forgotten, all enmeshed
In memory with each year's pre-dawn rituals
I have discovered-slow I must be for it took 30 years
It is not success in the hunt most yearned for,
But rather one more preparation before daybreak
For the many memories to revisit me.