The Doe

The Deer

Red or roe, i would not know, though by shoulder height, I might
Go for red, but maybe it was shorter, and then it had to be roe,
Certainly, if I follow the guide, it could not have been a fallow,
It was female, without antlers, a doe, and I thought of Audrey
Hepburn in a biography, her doe-like eyes, of a reproduction
Of Courbet’s deer taking shelter, but that was not the right
One, it must have been another, where the skittish animals
Are in mid-flight, like the doe I saw, her white rump flashed
Fright, and she swerved to avoid a bus, and traffic on carriage
Way, as if she were an avatar in a road kill game, an ordinary
And unremarkable animal found across Europe, but this moment,
The centre of all my thoughts and attention, the soft fur hide,
The stilt legs, the long neck, the ballet of survival, she rushed
Through my heart, as a shock and surprise, then came back
As Nature recoiled, the woodland rather than the dockland
The grass rather than asphalt, then in time images pushed
Away her, the art, the trite, the bambi of the first cartoon
In Weston-Super-Mare, and much much later, the deer carved
Up for demonstration, here, spilled out its vital organs and life,
And of course, literature does not keep at bay, it bucks and kicks
Its way through, with puns, and Andrew Marvell, which registers
With my cynicism slained, the nature of an Edward Landseer
Sentimental, none of this youtube rough stuff, of deer on bonnet,
Shot through the head with the contempt of a high powered conceit,
I could only revel in its appearance, sat on the bus, it woke up my
Morning, gave pause for thought and an unutterable shock of beauty.