The distant bangs and thuds and pops
Starting and stopping and starting again
Heard as we hike a trail in the woods
Not the soundscape we seek
Familiar sounds from my childhood
Hearing rifles and pistols and shotguns firing
Every Sunday all summer for hours on end
When my father took us to the shooting range
It's not a good family time memory
It was an obsession with him
Never to be questioned or discussed
Why we were required to be there
Guns are for killing and nothing else
And even though this was target practice
And even though that's all he did
There was a palpable violence about it
He had so many guns kept in the basement
Several cabinets full of collected specimens
But only a few ever got taken out and fired
And only one really mattered to him
A civil war relic a winner of match competitions
Using minie balls forged in his special mold
Tamped with patches cut just so from special cloth
Measuring the exact number of grains of black powder
Such precision loading resulted in consistency
And all the practice made for near perfection
With dozens of prize medals displayed high up
Out of reach of us curious children
So I grew up knowing how to shoot straight
How to squeeze the trigger while exhaling gently
Holding steady against the explosive recoil
Not flinching even an inch
A skill with a limited application
Unless you are a hunter of wild animals or humans
And I am not such a sniper as that
Though it serves me well shooting photos
But what is this fascination with guns
What about the shock of loud noises is fun
To make someone want to repeat it again
Unless you like to feel you have the power to kill
Was it because my father lost his father as a boy
Killed by his brother in a hunting accident
Or was it involved with some fantasy of glory
Fighting historic battles in the war to free the slaves
Questions I wonder about as I walk along
Watching the warm September sunlight sparkle
Dancing across the pond on an end-of-summer day
As the first leaves of autumn drift down underfoot
