For the White Deer

For the White Deer

The first time I saw her
she was a ghost at dusk,
weaving briefly between the poplars
at pasture’s edge, before vanishing
into the hillside’s black door.
It was July, and I shivered.

The second time, her mother,
large and careful and the color
of heartwood, led her gleaming
daughter along the tree line
long after nightfall to nibble
just the hem of tall field grass.
I watched, struck open,
as this luminous being
fed its small body and
its mother watched over—
maybe with wonder, with fear
certainly. Did they sense?
Did they know
that we who walk by day
in this other realm
count it as visitation, as sign
of the incandescence
in the hidden heart of the world?

Now it is late November
and I have not seen her again.
Perhaps she has
moved on, perhaps she is
haunting the autumn twilight
on another hillside, seen through
the quiet, extinguished trees
by another kindled soul.

~

From The Open Gate: New & Selected Poems by Emily Hancock (St Brigid Press, 2017)