The color hunter

By Chris Heeter

I set out in the early morning,

knife in hand, ready for the hunt.

Walking quietly, respectfully

I head east towards the rising sun.

My prey (or is it pray?) is beauty.

I am a color hunter,

in search of sights and scents.

Stalking the stalks, I eye the sunflowers.

Magnificent in their repose,

beaming brightly, happily.

Are there but a few willing to grace our table?

I hunt not for the biggest or the brightest,

but for the little ones that would otherwise be lost.

I leave the largest heads for the birds,

seeking instead size and color

and some unspoken willingness to come inside.

I walk back to the house

with color and abundance cradled in my arms.

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Chris Heeter, who runs The Wild Institute , is the author of Wild Thoughts, poems she publishes every Wednesday. You can sign up to receive a weekly poem in you e-mail inbox here. A letterpress collection of her poems, Wild Thoughts: Just Outside the Window, is published by Yileen Press .