HUNT'S END

"Hey let's go and hunt some deer!
on this early winter day
I've got a place not far from here
Let's go dad! What do you say?"

Sitting there he cleared his throat
"It seems," he said, "I'm catching cold
If they hear me cough it's all she wrote
We'll go before the year's too old"

Another week, the cough was worse
that damned cold wouldn't go away
I asked again, The" No "was terse
"We'll go again another day"

But that other day became a theme
until a doctor's verdict came
it wasn't just a cold it seemed
keeping dad from chasing game

Instead it was the smoker's bane
slowly robbing him of breath
any treatment would be in vain
uncertain only : date of death

He didn't leave without a fight
near half a year before he lost
in a sterile room one night
where he paid tobacco's cost

I still sometimes feel him at my side
especially in the woods of fall
and hope he's looking on with pride
as I answer autumn's call