Parable of the Hunter
Prose poem, by Tony Barnstone
There is an animal that is marvelous because it doesn’t exist. Like the unicorn, when you look at it closely, it turns out to be a two-horned oryx seen from the side, or a deformed goat. And yet in the moonlight…. Medieval allegorists have figured the creature in their bestiaries as a symbol of the poet’s recalcitrant inspiration or of evasive love, though modern critics have understood it as a manifestation of those elusive forms that fall between categories, such as the prose poem.
Although its meat is considered of dubious value, this is a product of ignorance. Those who know will go to almost any length to obtain it. The hunter of this beast will spend weeks in the forest listening to the trees until he has achieved the necessary silence, then will stand very still, his breaths as shallow as a Los Angeles conscience, waiting for the beast, and turning green. Centuries pass. The cities crumble like bread into the seas. The beast still has not come. By now, the hunter is half buried in the forest floor. He peers out from a tangle of strangling vines, covered with forest grubs, his long hair rooted in the earth.
For the first century, his thoughts had been rapid and filled with regret. Why am I such a fool? Even if I capture the thing, no one will care. They like the creatures at the zoo, with their well-studied habits and…
