By Elizabeth Fredrickson
The snow,
I look back and see my footprints.
But these aren't the footprints I want to leave behind,
I want something to benefit the world.
Something that affects the world like big, strong trees that grow,
people singing,
all sharing life and living as one.
I want to be remembered for who I was
and what I did to change the world,
not to have it forgotten like these footprints in the snow.
Only there for a short time,
but melts away in the spring.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Blood Sport"
Anonymous
In the distant past when the sportsman prowled
He was candid in his covetousness
Hunting, shooting, fishing, trapping, and death
Killing for blood and sporting for a kill
Some hunt in pursuit of food it is true
Yet amusement and reward govern all
The big catch, a pelt, a rack of antlers
A trophy for the wall mount is the prize
Today the nimrod is under assault
The critics use words too painful to bear
His actions, they say, are brutal and coarse
God's creatures, they say, deserve a life too
Loath to yield his sport or holster his gun
The hunter nabs words more pleasant to hear
He harvests or culls and thins the herd down
Veiled claims, for he reaps without sowing
"The intent behind this poem is to point out the disingenuous use of pastoral terms to describe a blood sport like hunting."
