In the late-mown meadow
in the last low light –
blue shadows, golden stubble, white
froths of snow in narrow furrows –
invisible until a trick of brightness,
then – their white rumps shining,
flanks dun-hued like winter grass,
wind’s swift avatars,
they appear
from the thin cold air:
proud bucks, harems of does
and fawns, their mixed herds twining
east and south –
they kneel to pass beneath the barbed-wire
fences, and then they are running,
the gale behind them, the storm’s mouth.


© by B. J. Buckley.
Used with the author’s permission.