Tough to say
how big a job it is,
until you get started,
but you eat a mouse
and an elephant
each, one bite
at a time.
Sometimes,
your eyes are bigger
than your stomach,
and you’re consumed
by what you set out to eat.
Hunting predators
isn’t the same
as taking game.
The rules that apply
go both ways.
Everything is prey
to everything else,
that’s the way
the world is.
Can’t change one thing
without
changing everything.
House of cards.
Path of dominoes.
We never now
which way it’s gonna fall,
until we take
that first one down,
and even then,
nothing is certain.
Can’t lay claim
to the hungriest eyes,
or sharpest teeth,
or quickest mind.
There is always one
bigger and hungrier.
Those that birth stars,
and those that devour them.
We sit,
barely on the observer’s edge,
hunting predators.
Time digests us,
back from our childhood,
until it’s gnawing on our bones.
Never afraid,
just constantly devouring.
Seconds, minutes, days.
Taking food from our plate
every moment that we breathe,
but when we recede
we no longer feel its teeth.
Sitting up
on a windswept bluff,
calling in,
hunting predators.
Those who would eat
from our flock.
Steal from our herd.
Those who would cause harm
to the weakest of us.
Twisted opportunists.
Nothing that can’t be solved
with good aim
and a little patience.
Didn’t know how bad
the problem was,
until I got started.
Now,
I’m in it for the long haul.
One bite
at a time.
Don’t think I
could be anything else
in what duration
I have left.
Hope my eyes
are as big as the sky,
and I’m a world-eater.
One bite
at a time.
DJR – 2023
