The Snawfus Hunt
This was no snipe I was after.
I began with a problem to solve
and pursued it into the brambles of purpose
but lost my will amidst the thorns,
and wayward went until I stood
two-faced in a January wood
unsure of direction or of duration,
lost until lucky, I saw the Snawfus,
a stag stamping in the snow ahead,
a colorless creature in the clearing,
with winterless leaves and bright blossoms,
dogwood of April in its antlers.
Forward I followed,
forgetting to measure my mark,
though a squall soon swallowed
my footsteps behind me,
and hourless, I hunted onward
through the trunks to the clearing
where it turned and took me in,
a gaze of ferocious fascination.
Then, tilting its head to the sky,
it blew a blue mist from its mouth,
clean and cool across the hills,
mute in its moisture,
and with this whistled
the sound of songbirds returning
in Spring to nest, and releasing
wings from its white withers
it leaped to the treetops and away.
I was alone in the wild
with no calls to collect me,
so I sat still and silent,
screenless in the scene.
My mission was meaningless,
and the day a door
leading to rooms outside my sight before,
as the wind whispered
awen
awen
again
again
again
and wait
though I am back,
I have never returned.
