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Saturday 1 November 2008

Lost -- by Beyond the Pale

.


Even on the mean concrete streets
Of Berkeley there are lost deer at night
This time of year, run off the hills, descending
To look for water and, not finding it,
Settling for nibbling the leaves of rose
And other bushes in people's back yards

Last fall this time, standing in the daytime rush
Hour street out front, now vacant this once
Because it was peaceful three in the morning
I heard familiar light tap dancer steps
On pavement that alerted me to
A presence I knew could not be another

Clumsy human like me, turned and saw close by,
Surprised as I was by our chance meeting,
Ears cocked toward me and likewise frozen,
A big deer, calculating whether to make
A run for safety yet no doubt in the same
Moment aware in cities there's no safety

For deer--we stood both thus transfixed,
Till I looked away, knowing in this turning
I would allow our night encounter to end--
As so it did, for in those seconds more
Light footsteps told me the visitor was
Moving away up into darkness toward...?

.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the image of the tap dancer. It is so how those hooves sound on concrete.

Thanks BtP and great to read another voice here.

DoctorShoot said...

even on the mean streets of winter there is mercy, compassion, and the chance to give a stranger a break.

love your phrasing, the way each little surprise finds the reader tumbled into the next stanza,,,
hate the suspended ending but that is my pathetic need for a station to arrive at...

good stuff thank you Beyond...

file said...

Yes 'tap dancer' is lovely, this is really nice BtP, as if there were two deer there that night...

Anonymous said...

Beautiful description of one of those hold-your-breath moments when you meet a wild creature in a man-made landscape. It never ceases to thrill.

I like the way you carry phrases over into the next line, giving an irregular, hesitating feel to the poem, like the deer itself uncertain which way to go..

Anonymous said...

yes , lovely how Beyond the Pale captures the unpredictability of the moment-

Anonymous said...

I mind the first time in Kennington, SE London, when a fox wandered not just round the bins, but across my friend's terrace.

As Zeph says, it's a hold your breath moment when wild nature intrudes on urban living.

Not, of course, what I have now.

Wolves, wolverines, leopards, cheetahs - all stalk the prey here in NE Scots. I fear for my cats.

Joke.

Anonymous said...

Yes, as others have said, I really like the hesitance, and the searching in this.

Mimi, my cats don't go out anymore because of urban coyotes on the rampage in LA. Not joke.

Anonymous said...

Gosh - munni. Wish I hadn't been so flippant now.

Coyotes in your street, a bit scary. I wouldn't let mine out if there really were wild beasts around.

Mind you, I didn't let them out today as children with fireworks are notoriously dangerous and we now have a week of it. They tie firecrackers to cats' tails for fun.

Life is sick sometimes.

offsideintahiti said...

I once found a crab in my living-room, all tangled up in the stereo's wires, does that count?

Nice one, BtP, but who's lost?

Anonymous said...

I look after spiders, but that doesn't mean i'd give scorpions house room.

Anonymous said...

And there's been a load of comprising on the way to my horizon.

Oh and a dollar tucked inside my shoe.