Fawn
By Mary Barnard
Out of a high meadow where flowers
bloom above cloud, come down;
pursue me with reasons for smiling without malice.
Bring mimic pride like that of the seedling fir,
surprise in the perfect leg-stems
and queries unstirred by recognition or fear
pooled in the deep eyes.
Come down by regions where rocks
lift through the hot haze of pain;
down landscapes darkened, crossed
by the rift of death-shock; place print
of a neat hoof on trampled ground
where not one leaf or root
remains unbitten; but come down
always, accompany me to the morass
of the decaying mind. There
we’ll share one rotted stump between us.
Copyright Credit: Mary Barnard, “Fawn” from Collected Poems (Portland: Breitenbush, 1979). Used by permission of the Estate of Mary Barnard.
Source: The Collected Poems of Mary Barnard (Breitenbush, 1979)