A Meeting

Fumbling fog-blind
through the woods
I felt a heavy shift,

a movement nearby
pacing me
to its own rythmn.

Wrapped in thick
grey nothingness
a breathing thing

waiting now.
I felt the air tremble,
the fog shivered

and I paused.
Slow forms breathed
out of the air

like ectoplasm,
searching through the mist.
A slow grey fist

uncurled its smoky
crooked fingers,
like the hand of death.

And then another,
before the deer's face followed
and he stood

in vague, murky glory,
his head, clouded
in his own steam,

crowned by deadly horns.
He was a tree with eyes,
a furred skull

branched and breathing,
the rest of him a formless
dream of deer

but umistakeably there.
I held my breath
to skirt him

and felt a ripple through
his mist-grey flank
as I passed,

a ghost note,
like the unheard beat
of those we meet

and leave,
no more than that.