In but one bound – one moment – did
the animal alight
the scene ‘n leave it. ‘Phem’rally
it flickered… Henceforth, memory
alone bound it. The night
took in its form ‘n kept it hid.
With gracile step, agilic poise,
‘n purity he’d leapt
from th’dark off to my right-side. Thence
the bracken sprawl sloped downward, whence
the murm’ring waters slept,
with wavewash whispers th’only noise.
With antlers, broad ‘n brazen, blaze-
fully fierce was adorned
the male deer in his peaking prime;
as rhythmic prose replete with rhyme
was he in stagg’ring form!
Yet in his staying – th’wind; the haze.
Mere metres (Was it four? Or three?)
of grass-green, time-whipped ground
between us, like the ink-blue page,
undulating o’er eon; age.
T’was in his single bound
that I first knew of poetry.
Image credit – Guillen
william altoft 