Poem: Stranger in the Woods · The Ethical Predator

Poem: Stranger in the Woods

I've been missing in action the last month--blame additional work and the end of school season. I'm finally getting a chance to share another poem. It's still rough, but I feel this one will resonate well with the Ethical Predator membership.

Enjoy!

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𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙤𝙙𝙨

There was a time when the hunter moved like he was the land. His gear was born from my bones—crafted from the earth itself. His bow, carved from a branch that had fallen in a storm, shaped by the wind and guided by the rhythm of the seasons. His arrows, fletched with feathers he found beneath my trees, each one a quiet prayer to the creatures that roamed beside him. His cloak, sewn from the pelts of animals who gave themselves to him, soft with time, worn with memory. Every piece of his gear was a gift from me, crafted with care, worn with respect. Nothing was wasteful. Everything had a purpose. And he understood this. He knew that to take from me was to give back—always. The earth never gives without asking something in return.

His scent? That was my scent. He moved through my trees like a shadow, invisible to all but me. His smell was of autumn leaves crushed underfoot, the rich earthiness of peat moss pulled from the bogs, the faint, smoky trace of a fire that had passed through and renewed the soil. These scents, warm from the sun, clung to him and blended with the wind. He didn’t try to hide his scent. He became part of me. Part of my cycle. I gave, and he took only what he needed, moving through my world with respect, never deceit.

He wasn’t separate from me. He was of me.

But now ... now I watch.

I see him standing in my forests, a stranger wrapped in the cold, unnatural fibers of a world that doesn’t belong here. His boots are no longer soft leather or moss-covered soles; they are stiff, synthetic, designed to block out the very earth I gave him. His bow, once made of wood—shaped by the hands of a craftsman—is now a sleek, polished tool of metal and plastic. His arrows, which used to be fletched with feathers, are now cold, carbon-fiber rods, sharp and foreign to my soil.

He’s wrapped in synthetic fibers, and his scent ... it’s something else. Something wrong. He pulls a bottle from his pack, sprays it on his clothes, trying to cover himself with a manufactured scent. A chemical scent. It doesn’t belong to me. It twists the air, pulling it out of harmony, disrupting the rhythm of my breath. It stings, sharp and unnatural, like a noise in the silence of the forest.

He thanks someone else now. Not me. Not the land.

He speaks their names—companies, brands, corporations that supply him with tools, scent-masking chemicals, plastic gear. “Thanks to my sponsors,” he says. Not directed at me, not directed at the trees or the sky or the creatures who once knew him. He thanks the invisible forces of industry that profit from his need to conquer, to take, to hide from the very world that once welcomed him.

No, I can still smell him. I can still feel him. Out of place. Like an intruder. Trying to cheat the land that once nourished him. His heart beating to a rhythm that no longer matches mine, no longer matches the pulse of the earth. And I wonder—does he even notice?

I turn my gaze away, a wind sighing through my trees. I wait. I wait for him to remember. But I fear he may never. The seasons remember. The trees remember. But him? Does he? Does he still know how to be with me? Does he still remember the old ways—the ways of the earth, when the scent of the forest was enough to guide him, when the ash from a fire was all he needed to blend with the world?

The seasons shift, the trees age, and still I wait.

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Poem: Stranger in the Woods