Here's an old poem I remember reading years ago in a copy of one of my dad's outdoor magazines. I dedicate it to all of the deer hunters, old and new, who are among us.....with that, I present.....
PALACE IN THE POPPLE
By John Madson
It?s a smoky, raunchy boars? nest
With an unswept, drafty floor
And pillow ticking curtains
And knife scars on the door.
The smell of pine-knot fire
From a stovepipe that?s come loose
Mingles sweetly with the boot grease
And the Copenhagen snoose.
There are work-worn .30-.30s
With battered, steel-shod stocks,
And drying lines of long johns
And of steaming, pungent socks.
There?s a table for the Bloody Four
And their games of two-card draw,
And there?s deep and dreamless sleeping
On bunk ticks stuffed with straw.
Jerry and Jake stand by the stove,
Their gun-talk loud and hot,
And Bogie has drawn a pair of kings,
And is raking in the pot.
Franks? been drafted again as cook
And is peeling some spuds for stew
While Bruce wanders by in baggy drawers
Reciting ?Dan McGrew?.
No where on Earth is fire so warm
Nor coffee so infernal,
Nor whiskers so stiff, jokes so rich,
Nor hope blooming so eternal.
A man can live for a solid week
In the same old under-britches
And walk like a man and spit when he wants
And scratch himself where he itches.
I tell you, boys, there?s no place else
Where I?d rather be, come fall,
Where I eat like a bear and sing like a wolf
And feel like I?m bull-pine tall.
In that raunchy cabin out in the bush
In the land of the raven and loon,
With a tracking snow lying new to the ground
At the end of the rutting moon.
