Spying a Wild Deer in the Combe Field

I looked a wild deer in the eye and held
its gaze while both of us remained motionless.
I saw it run like mine own desire, unfold
its leap and bounce and springiness.

I’d only gone into the garden to smoke
and saw it grazing, in its own world,
up by the babbling beck in the back,
contained in the museum that’s the field.

While I paused to watch it, it grazed away,
then noticed me and both of us froze.
While I was still, the deer looked at me
cautious of danger one might presuppose -

then I made a movement and it leaped,
jumped into orbit, red, running off fast.
I watched it running all the way, rapt,
and saw it leap over a fence at the last.

Cloaked in the aura of special perception,
the encounter was almost like a visit -
to see those elegant legs in extension -
as if the deer were an extension of the poet.

Nibbling up the beck my mouth is water
and when I speak it spills on the earth.
I try not to flaunt my role in Nature.
Down to the sea I flow without death.

John F.B. Tucker
 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, John F.B. Tucker would be pleased to hear them.