The Hunt

The wind sings a dirge through the bare-branched trees,
The chill-toothed wind of onrushing winter.
There come a murmur more restless than a thousand seas,
As if the skins of dead crickets still mourn the summer.
The wind tears out over the still and cold-blackened leas.

A stag lifts his head to listen to the sound of the wind.
His coat is the sable of the finest farm-raised mink,
A blackness that whispers of places where feet have dinned,
But not for long ages; a splash of forgotten ink
On a report where someone forgot what he meant to rescind.

His hooves and his eyes are the silver of uncovered bone,
But the true wonder are his antlers, which are trees of frost,
Branching up to encircle the crescent moon flying alone,
Between one harsh-breathing cloud and another lost.
His nostrils flare to catch the scent that rides the wind's moan.

Then he turns, and across the moon-dappled darkness sprints,
The sound of his hooves like the sound of rolled rock.
His tossing horns shimmer, and each hoof like a falling star glints;
His speed of the darkly flying wind on winter's edge makes mock.
His wild rolling eyes and his flaring nostrils give teasing hints

Of what runs behind him, what he sensed or smelled in the dark.
But nothing is visible as he tears up and down the black hills,
His hooves rebounding with such force they would strike a spark
If autumn had not drunk the very last drop of summer's flame-rills
From the grass, and chased away the light and the lark.

No bird sings now; there is no sound in the moon-blasted night,
But the thump of the stag's hooves and his huffs of breath,
And the wind that comes howling behind him in patient flight,
Carrying the scent that warned him of his impending death.
The stag runs further and further from the moon's lostling light.

At last he comes to a patch of trees where there is no brilliance,
Nothing but the moon thrown back by the rough and dead bark.
Here he plunges, as if seeking some relief from the radiance.
Here he plunges as if looking to find some refuge in the dark.
He jumps in, leaving the wind to howl over his lost magnificence.

Then one sound dies- the sound of the thundering hooves-
And for a long moment the night pauses as if seeking a note.
Then another noise to take the place of the running stag moves:
A despairing scream that might be torn by utter pain from the throat.
The wind makes a shushing noise that nothing sane in this night soothes.

At last, the wind parts the branches of the grove standing defiant,
And goes in to see for itself what darkness might have passed.
It comes into a clearing that without the light seems drear and silent,
And where something lies still and motionless on the grass.
Slowly, the wind whistles around the scene dark-blooded and violent.

The stag lies with his throat torn out, the warm steaming blood
Like a river of darkness on the ground; and from his belly
There comes out another stream to join in the life-giving flood
His organs tumble out after, like shaking bowls of hot jelly.
The stag lies with staring eyes in the darkness and the mud.

The wind turns and flees as swiftly as it can, and once freed
Springs from treetop to treetop, as if to catch up the moonlight,
And forget the clearing and the thing that made the stag bleed.
Back in the clearing, once sure it will not be disturbed again this night,
The darkness that killed the stag turns once more back to feed.