The Hunter (poem)

The end is but another start,
Another arena to hone your art.
Limited are the arrows in your clip,
And the leaderboards do often flip.

Immortality is just out of your grasp,
As you sprint to outpace Death’s rasp.
Your hunting weapons weight you down,
“But I cannot abandon them,” you frown.

You glance beside you and behind,
And see many of your kith and kind.
Yet to the fore there is nary a shadow,
True leaders do not stop or dawdle.

Every so often, a flash of the scythe,
And a hunter falls, a corpse or in blithe.
The urge to join them grows and wanes,
As you peek at the winding golden chains.

The bodies around you that start to rot,
Have names history won’t give another thought.
You tell yourself, “These are not the same as me!
I have the rest of the universe left to see.”

A sharp dagger wriggles loose from your store,
And soon it lands on the dense forest floor.
You pity the loss but you cannot turn back,
Perhaps it’ll be found by a later hunter with lack.
You bend down to sweep up a knife that lay just ahead,
And pray that it’ll cut as fine in the dagger’s stead.

The sun sets and you begin to tire,
But in your heart remains ambition as fire.
When morning arrives you wake up, hungry and cold.
But you’ve survived another day, to re-embark the path of the bold.