Run Roe Deer Run

In that ambergris hour when a lemon-streaked
blood-orange of a sun relinquishes its beat
to a lay-back finger-nail moon, glimpse
a roe deer ...head to one side
by a paling fence.

She hears things my ears are deaf to; the run
of power lines up the hill...
their buzz –

even in the silence, in the midst of the trees,
there is a whispering...backlit and green –
a susurrus of tongues;
dew-damp missives...

breathless phrasing as the wind
fingers the reeds – senses the thin, brown line
of a bee – notes the pitch and thrum
as it teases the end of a down-pipe;

accepts the way the sun sits further away
this time of the year. Notices
everything I long to –

the solitary skylark – a lone voice,
beauty enough to sight the blinded eye
of a shepherd’s rundown
dry-stone hut.

The first star lights up a dewberry sky;
the part of me that can see two worlds collide – go
with her as she runs; the rest...

my ignorance, my fear, my lack
of instinct, my stubborn, silent greed
stay here,

while she despises with a flick
of her cloven hooves, the company
I keep, whether or not,
I so choose.