Background

By

Richard Clark

I’ve always loved the outdoors. Hunting, fishing, camping, and such. I never could get enough of it when I was a kid and I still can’t. Although, these days I sometimes get all I can handle without a break.

Years ago, my brother and I hunted every chance we got, mostly, on my grandpa’s farm near Quitman Arkansas. We’d set out for squirrels but might come home with a rabbit, a "coon" or any other game that was legal. Once, and ONLY once, we brought in a "possum" and a couple of squirrels that we had gotten by pushing over a dead tree. We learned that you don’t bring in something to grandpas and let it go to waste. We had cleaned a lot of squirrels but He made us clean that "possum" too. I’m pretty sure a "possum" ranks very high on the list of foul smelling critters when being cleaned. Years later I had the misfortune of cleaning out the grease trap in a commercial kitchen. I remember thinking, how in the world did this trap get "possums" in it. Grandpa did teach us an important lesson though. Never kill an animal that you don’t intend to eat.

We never hunted deer back in those days, primarily because there were no deer in that area. (Today they are all over the place.) We were too young to drive so we were limited to hunting where we could just "strike out" from the house and come back when we were ready. Of course, grandpa always had some dogs that were ready to hunt anytime we were. It was a perfect way for two young boys to hunt. We just walked along, talked, laughed and listened for the dogs to tree. We didn’t even know what stealth meant. It was in later years that I learned, out of necessity, to "still hunt" for squirrels. I did not have access to dogs when I was away from grandpas. By then I had a job and got to hunt only when I was off work. Consequently, I ended up hunting alone a lot of the time because everyone else was working. At first it seemed pretty strange but gradually I realized I was enjoying my outing as much as ever. I have always enjoyed the camaraderie of a hunting partner, and still do, but now I was seeing and hearing things in the woods that I had not noticed before. I noticed the "quiet" sounds like an acorn falling to the ground, insects buzzing, birds singing their own peculiar song, squirrels barking, chipmunks scurrying around in the leaves and many other things I had been oblivious to before. I enjoyed walking along and talking and listening for the dogs to tree, but now I felt more in tune with what was going on around me. This just added to my enjoyment of the outdoors.

When I was in my late twenties, I took a new job and moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas. It wasn’t long till I met and married my wife. (I chased her relentlessly until she caught me.) Now, Elaine, my new wife came from a family of "deer hunters". These guys went to the woods and stayed for days hunting for deer. Until now I had been deer hunting only a couple of times and, then, it was only for the day. I didn’t even see a deer so I had not been particularly impressed. When I went to deer camp, I was immediately hooked on it even though I knew very little about how to hunt deer. At first I tried to hunt the same way I had hunted for squirrels, stalking through the woods and watching. I know a lot of people who hunt this way and are very successful but it did not work at all well for me. It wasn’t until I learned to sit on a stand and be still and quiet that I started to take a deer now and then. There were also more benefits to stand hunting that I learned to appreciate, namely, the same things I had discovered when I first started still hunting for squirrels, all the natural things that were going on in the woods. But now, I saw and heard much more because I was not merely stopping for a few moments to look for movement in the trees. I was getting on stand well before shooting light and sitting there quietly while the new day began. The sounds of the forest awakening became music to my ears, the wildlife starting to move, the sunrise, the tinkling sounds of water running in the creek. It was as though I had been transported into a natural setting and had become, even if only for this moment, an integral part of this natural happening. This early morning period quickly became one of my favorite times of the day. Of course, anytime I go hunting it is my intention to harvest an animal, but I soon learned that failure to take an animal is not what makes or breaks the outing. When I’m lucky enough to harvest an animal, that’s just icing on the cake.

When I first started stand hunting, I had trouble staying put for long periods of time. I know that a lot of other hunters have or have had the same problems. One solution used by many hunters is to take along a book. They read a paragraph, then scan the woods. Read and scan, read and scan. This is a very good idea, I think, and I use it often but, there is something else I enjoy a great deal, as well.

When you sit in the woods for several hours there are countless events going on around you. Very likely most go unnoticed or they are passed off as insignificant. I enjoy writing poetry. I’m not particularly good at it but that doesn’t matter. I especially like writing about things that happen in the outdoors. All the events I write about are important to me because they are my experiences. Most are no different from those of any other hunter but when I put them down on paper and go back and read them later, the memories of that day come back to me, sometimes very vividly, and it’s almost like experiencing them all over again. Recently, I have begun carrying a small pocket notebook with me when I go to my stand. I try to notice all the things going on and record those that make an impression on me. Later I can put them down in poetic form. Many of the things I have written about happened many years ago and were written from memory. I sometimes wonder how many things I’ve forgotten. Carrying a notebook, hopefully, will keep this from happening in the future. I have found that by doing this I experience the outing more fully because I make a point of noticing all the little things going on in the woods and not just watching for deer. I have seen some very humorous interaction between squirrels and young deer around my corn feeder.

Lately, I have become very fond of a type of Japanese verse called Haiku. It is a simple verse consisting of a single thought. It has a particular form composed of three lines that do not rhyme. The first line contains five syllables, the second line contains seven syllables and the third line contains five syllables.

This form lends itself well to "stand composing" because it is short and can often be completed on the spot.

Of course, I may go back many times to edit and "polish" what I have originally written. That just extends the enjoyment of the original experience even more.

As a hunter most people would not consider me particularly adept. I’ve taken several deer over the years but not nearly as many as some of my friends and I have never taken what most would consider a real trophy. Still, I love it.

As a poet I’m not particularly talented but, as I’ve already said, that doesn’t matter. I write to please myself. So, if by chance, someone else should be moved by something I have written then I would consider myself to be somewhat successful in that field.

As a hunter I’ll never be a Chuck Adams or a Fred Bear. I may never have a Pope and Young or a Boone and Crockett trophy but I’ll still enjoy every minute I can spend in the woods trying.

As a poet, my name will never be mentioned in the same sentence with the likes of Robert Frost or Carl Sandburg but I still enjoy putting my thoughts down on paper and reading them again and again and remembering.