The Hunter's Heart

Once upon a time, in a far away Kingdom, deep in an enchanted wood ...

I was going to post the image alone but I've not attempted cursive(?) in at least 25 years, so I thought I'd save the reader my mistakes and illegible whims. (I'm embarrassed to admit it took quite the amount of brain power, concentration and effort to write that way for a prolonged period of time)

For only X marks the spot
And there can be found,
Embraced by the darkness,
Deep in the ground,

A box where lay hid,
And kept far apart,
Still beating and bleeding
The huntsman's poor heart.

He endures in duty.
He wanders the woods.
Tracking and trapping,
And selling his goods.

And those who would meet him
Could see in his eyes
He was a mere nothingness
In a hunter's disguise.

No sunlight would pierce
The canopied sky.
Moss grew on his back,
All he breathed was a sigh.

And so it was thus
Till the end of his days
He walked the cold earth
Under which the box stays.

Perhaps of necessity
He's long since forgot,
And no longer would recognize
For only X marks the spot.

But from the cracks of the box
And through stony earth grows
Intertwining together two vines
One red, one white rose.

The fragrance born forth
On the forests gnarled bones
Comes to rest in his chest,
The bittersweet memory of home.

‘Tis an ache without ceasing,
An abyss-sized hole.
There in waking and dreaming
For only X marks his soul.