Velarys (Latter Day Hemingway)

He stood out among the villagers.

A polished, refined & genteel gentleman.

A man’s man in fact, and you

Needn’t speak his tongue to know it.

Hunting was his great passion

As far as we, who loved him knew.

Long rifle & knee-high hunting boots

Admired in stature by friend & foe alike.

On the hunt he was a virtuoso.

Smooth, accomplished and precise.

Sounding the death knoll for game

Far and wide, sans hood and scythe.

One fateful day, no one saw coming,

He dressed in his best, as if for a hunt,

Sat on a ledge in his open courtyard, and

As dawn broke, turned the rifle on himself.

They say there’s one constant here,

That all life on Earth insists on itself.

Yet who can say why some deviate?

Even some who seem to play it so well.